Everything to eat and drink on a Southern Highlands road trip (plus one burger you shouldn’t miss)

The Southern Highlands is not short on cellar doors, bakeries, great cafes and restaurants but our favourite discovery of the past 12 months might be the works burger at Wingello Village Store and Post Office (yes, it also sends mail). The soft, flat bun comes from Bryant’s Bakery in Goulburn. Local butchers supply the beef and house-cured bacon; lettuce, tomato and free-range eggs come from nearby farmers. Brilliant.

We also need to mention the mixed business counter at Wingello Village Store – a cornucopia of frogs, freckles, bananas, teeth and clinkers, and dozens of other lollies you may have not thought about in years. Speaking of sweet things, Robbo Donut Van, some say, does a hot cinnamon doughnut that rivals the icon at Berry. It’s open Thursday to Sunday at Native Grace nursery in Robertson if you want to judge for yourself.

If you want a coffee to go with that doughnut, read on. Below are our other top food and drink picks for the region. When the Three Blue Ducks team opens a bakery, cafe and ambitious restaurant at Burradoo Park Farm in April, we expect that will join this list, too.

Nick’s

There are places in the Southern Highlands that are serious about coffee, and then there’s Nick’s. It’s a bright, white and beautifully designed space that also happens to be a small art gallery and retail shop for its house roasts and anyone in the market for new pour-over equipment. A flat white or long black isn’t a problem but if you can spare the time it’s also worth settling in for one of the rare specialty roasts hand-brewed to order. There’s no food but there are friendly staff happy to provide tasting notes.

343 Bong Bong Street, Bowral, instagram.com/coffeebynicks

Osborn House

Few boutique hotels in NSW are more beautiful. The interiors were designed by Linda Boronkay and evoke nostalgia through vintage finds and handcrafted textures, while plush lounges at every turn suggest “sit down, relax, drink a martini on this couch”. You don’t have to be staying onsite to book a seat at the bar (George’s) or Latin American restaurant (Fire Kitchen), either. An outdoor terrace with a knockout view of Morton National Park is exactly where you want to eat wood-fired bavette with chimichurri and twice-cooked Robertson potatoes. Meanwhile, George’s is the spot for hotel dining classics, such as a double wagyu cheeseburger, caesar salad and mafaldine bolognese.

96 Osborn Avenue, Bundanoon, osbornhouse.com.au

The Studio by The What If Society

Eilish Maloney is the founder of zero-waste food co-operative What If Society, and this inviting, natural-light-filled space is where she nourishes loyal regulars with thoughtful, big-flavoured cooking. By day there’s a heady bakery menu of cakes, pies, slices and sausage rolls, plus smart brunchy plates such as battered pak choy with fermented chilli, curry and a crumbed egg. On Thursday to Saturday evenings The Studio switches to wine-bar mode, and you can make a full meal out of things like oysters with finger lime oil, fried cabbage with chilli labneh and beef carpaccio with confit smoked tomato. Coffee, cocktails and regularly changing wines are top-notch, too.

443 Argyle Street Moss Vale, thewhatifsociety.com

Moonacres Kitchen

The Big Potato and pie shop get most of the tourist love in Robertson but the town’s most delicious drawcard is Moonacres Kitchen for breakfast and lunch (and the occasional dinner), using produce from owner Phil Lavers’ nearby farm. Chef Stephen Santucci uses Lavers’ organic fruit and vegetables for masterful salted cod and potato hash browns, a fruit-loaded bruschetta with ruby-red rhubarb, and cracking breakfast Danishes. The double cheeseburger with house-made pickles, farm salad, provolone and tasty cheese has a strong local fan base, and the accompanying hand-cut Robertson chips are an exemplar of the form.

81 Illawarra Highway, Robertson, moonacres.com.au

Sutton Forest Inn

Stop in for a Guinness on the deck and take in those rolling Highland views. The Sutto is, by some margin, the best all-rounder pub in the region, whether you’re in the front bar playing cards with your partner and putting your nose in one of the fairly decent whiskies (there’s even an open-fire in winter to complete this scene), or settling into the bistro for a cut-above schnitzel or rib-eye with Cafe de Paris and potato gratin. A place of tartan carpet, vintage booze posters and taxidermy, plus a little takeaway deli section if you need goat’s cheese and crackers. Meanwhile, Berrima’s Surveyor General Inn has long been home to one of the cosiest public bars in the country. More fireplaces, more beer, more schnitzels as long as a Sherrin.

7390 Illawarra Highway, Sutton Forest, suttonforestinn.com.au

Dawning Day Winery and Distillery

The Southern Highlands has a wealth of wineries; however, the cellar doors can sometimes feel like function centres more geared towards weddings and bridal parties, serving the same cheese and crackers you can buy from Coles. If you’re simply looking for an easy-going winery to spend an afternoon by the fire with a cool-climate pinot noir, Dawning Day in Exeter is the best place for it. The family-run micro-vineyard offers guided tastings of its premium cool-climate wines, but if you just want to mind your own business with a full glass, go forth. Visit in summer and there’s also a lush lawn engineered for picnics with cheese plates and lightly chilled gamay.

25 Rockleigh Road, Exeter, dawningday.com.au

Roberto’s Pizzeria

The great regional pizza renaissance continues. Roberto’s (because what else would you want to call a pizzeria in Robertson?) opened in August 2025 with deliciously chewy, charred, Naples-style pizzas you can take by the box-load back to a holiday rental, or eat straight out of the wood-fired oven by booking a table. There’s a margherita, naturally, with buffalo mozzarella and super fresh basil, while many of the original creations are bolstered by local produce, such as a special of slow-cooked brisket, goat’s cheese and habanero aioli. A longer innings might involve Aperol-based cocktails, arancini and bucatani Amatriciana.

42 Hoddle Street, Robertson, robertospizzeria.com.au

Shanghai Chinese

From the street it looks like any modest Australian-Chinese restaurant. Inside it’s a soft-lit capsule of longevity symbols, floral wallpaper and red lanterns. An all-are-welcome time warp of scalloped tablecloths, CorningWare plates and two stunning landscapes in light boxes. All the greatest hits are played at the oldest surviving Chinese restaurant in Bowral. The prawn toast tastes like prawn toast. The fried rice tastes like fried rice. The black vinegar pork ribs taste like a cinnamon doughnut. Beef hor fun noodles are a smoky, savoury highlight. BYO corkage is $3 a person if you want to open any Southern Highlands wine finds.

265 Bong Bong Street, Bowral

Lucette Bistro

Possibly the hottest restaurant to open in Bowral since Biota. According to Good Food Guide co-editor David Matthews in his recent review, Lucette is a bistro-brasserie cleverly tooled to suit the many speeds and needs of the Highlands. Viennoiserie and omelettes in the morning, baguettes at lunch, steak frites for lunch and dinner. “Sitting here is a pleasure,” he says, “either inside behind cafe curtains, or slung on mustard banquettes in the breezy terrace. But the real kicker is on the plate, where former Monopole chef Guillaume Dubois brings fine-dining nous to classics.”

17/310-312 Bong Bong Street, Bowral, lucettebistro.com.au

Paste Australia

Paste doesn’t just buck country-town Thai trends by painting outside the red-green-yellow curry box, it puts Mittagong on the map of “best places to eat sator pad goong outside of Thailand”. Chef Bee Satongun and her restaurateur husband Jason Bailey also run Paste’s original acclaimed location in Bangkok but in Australia they get to showcase Cowra pork – perhaps basted with wild honey, grilled on the bone and underlined by wattle seed relish – and Moreton Bay bug jostling with pomelo and betel leaf. The dining room is spacious, modern and glass-fronted; Satongun’s cooking is complex, textural and refined. A slippery fermented rice-noodle salad with blue swimmer crab, pickled garlic and coconut milk transports you to the tropics, while minced duck larb feels right at home in the Highlands, with its toasty roasted paste and flavour boost of duck liver. Wine, including local gear, is given fair attention, too.

105 Main Street, Mittagong, pasteaustralia.com

Flour Bar

When a smart wine professional (in this case Ben Shephard, formerly of Biota) opens a bakery, bottle shop, cafe and restaurant, delicious things can happen. Heck, let’s call it a wine bar, too. Outdoor seats against Flour’s mid-century facade feel just right for trout rillettes, cured meats and a glass of something lush and red. Every Friday and Saturday evening is now pizza night, with a menu of sourdough bases topped with combinations including leg ham and charred pineapple, and oyster mushrooms and artichoke. Ambitious as it may be, Flour Bar keeps everyone, including those with diverse dietary needs, well served and well fed.

386 Argyle Street, Moss Vale, flourbar.com.au

To stay

Look, I’ll be honest. The Highlands could do with a few less fusty hotels. Osborn House is the pick of the bunch, by a considerable margin, although Milton Park in Bowral recently relaunched as a luxury retreat with a new bar and restaurant, too. NB: The Milton Park relaunch is so fresh, Good Food hasn’t had a chance to visit anonymously and review. The region is a rich ecosystem of short-stay rentals, however, and I will usually book an Airbnb (the company also provided me with accommodation to help write this guide). Preferred houses include The Croft and Sauna Haus in Bowral, and The Stables at Long Paddock in Burradoo.