‘Have another glass’: Farmhouse restaurant is perfect for long, wine-country lunching

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I don’t know about you, but I find most meals are enhanced by a few emus running about nearby. There are four of them at Zin House, stalking the perimeter of a paddock behind the restaurant, oblivious to the fact emu eggs (from a different family of birds, mind) are being used for their yolky richness in a lemon delicious pudding. Three blue-green eggs are presented to guests just before dessert, and pretty much everyone takes a photo, each shell speckled like the country sky on a cloudless night.

Type “pastoral farm-to-table restaurant” into Google Image Search and you’ll probably get a picture of somewhere that looks very much like Zin House, a 10-minute drive from Mudgee’s town centre. Regional NSW food hero Kim Currie has been running the Lowe Family Wine Co restaurant for the past 11 years, and I’ve had several long innings at the spot over that time. A recent five-course set menu lunch was one of the best.

I’ll confess: some of my Zin House memories are a bit fuzzy after too many zinfandels (winemaker David Lowe’s flagship grape) and fortifieds at the tail end of proceedings. With vases of wattle, sturdy rugs, vineyard views and an invitation to wander the permaculture garden between courses – glass in hand like you’re cosplaying Floyd on France – it’s the kind of place where you may need to draw straws to designate a driver. Guests are also encouraged to book a tasting at the cellar door after nougat and house-grown herbal tea.

Recollections of certain dishes, however, are as vivid as the sun, such as the heritage-breed chicken terrine with fresh-as radishes and their leaves four years ago, and a parmesan custard tart served at the beginning of August with delicate (but highly buttery) pastry from Althea by Zin, the restaurant’s terrific cafe and bakery in town.

The tart’s crowning achievement was a salad of matchstick beetroot, thin-sliced fennel, chervil and assorted leaves picked a few metres away that morning, not to mention fresh curd from the good folk at Jannei Goat Dairy near Lithgow. Currie’s “universal” dressing – featuring, among other things, sherry vinegar, lemon, pomegranate molasses and honey – brightens the corners for one of my top five dishes of the year. Expect the salad to change when you visit (seasons, et cetera), but the guiding principles to say the same.

By the time you’re reading this, the pasta may have been rotated, too. There can’t be too many winter truffles left to grate over a light white-wine cream sauce and fettuccine with the chewy bounce of hand-pulled Chinese la mian noodles. But there will always be a house-made pasta course of some variety, just as there’s usually sourdough, olives and salami (made by Arnaldo Colaiacomo, son of Angela and Carlo who founded Leichhardt’s pioneering AC Butchery, no less) to start.

The parmesan custard tart is one of my top five dishes of the year.

Meat raised on the Tinja farm property that Zin House sits on is also a given. The other week it was a lamb forequarter and lean sundry cuts (this is a proper nose-to-tail kitchen working with more parts of a sheep than its shoulders), braised overnight and served with a reassuring stock carried over from the day before. Visit next week and there may be beef eye fillet and early spring vegetables instead.

Tables aren’t turned; there are no two-hour-maximum sittings. Our waiter knew the short Lowe and Australian-focused wine list inside out. The only recent “huh?” note was music, which flicked between high-rotation rock (Stairway to Heaven), pop and the odd Quincy Jones bossa nova (read: the Austin Powers theme). But Blame It on the Boogie is hardly a mood-killer, so what the heck. Just draw some straws. Have another glass. Go and say hi to emus.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine