This busy 20-seater is one of the best wine bars in the state (and isn’t where you’d expect)

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If you’re an up-and-coming winemaker looking for a NSW region to call home, Orange would have to be right at the top of the list. It’s a young region, even by Australian standards, so you’re not too sandbagged by tradition. Secondly, there’s a fair whack of fruit to experiment with, including the region’s celebrated chardonnay, shiraz and pinot noir. Thirdly, you can hang out at Hey Rosey, one of the best wine bars in the state.

Leigh Oliver isn’t a winemaker, but six years ago he and his partner, Verity Abrams, were drawn to Orange as a fertile place to open somewhere serving snacks and nice booze. (The couple previously ran Cure Bar and Eatery in Melbourne.) When it came time to hire a chef, Hugh Piper blew into town like an anchovy-fancying Mary Poppins, fresh from rattling the pans at Potts Point bar Dear Sainte Éloise and also keen to put down roots in a region with more affordable real estate than our capital cities.

Hey Rosey opened in early 2023 and the 20-seater is essentially one big hallway, flanked by a tiny kitchen and with just enough room for one person to cook and another to pour riesling. Many of its artworks are secondhand finds, ditto the mid-century furniture and grandma-chic plates. Framed notebook sketches by former staff member Brielle Lord depict fish and flowers and Tête de Moine cheese; records by T. Rex and The Avalanches spin beneath a shelf of amaro.

On a recent Friday-night visit, the place was packed. I booked two weeks in advance and the earliest free slot was 9.30pm, a time when most other kitchens in regional towns – heck, most kitchens in Sydney – have long stopped taking orders. Piper and Oliver are committed to serving the full menu right up to 11pm, which is the kind of thing you can do when you’re only working with two induction tops, a meat slicer and small oven.

The daily-changing menu is largely based on what local farmers are dropping off that week. “Farmer Doug’s” midnight pearl potatoes, for instance, are deep-purple, dense and nutty – brilliant for salt-baking and topping with yoghurt-like quark, lovage and salmon roe. Doorstops of pumpkin from Block11 Organics are braised in wattleseed and miso for a soft, savoury punch and covered with chilli-spiked honey, hazelnut vinaigrette and a small blizzard of goat’s cheddar.

Thin-sliced roast pork loin and pickled fennel are ruffled over saffron aioli and a terrific XO sauce made with charcuterie trimmings. Hey Rosey is the kind of place that will tell you, unprompted, where that miso, pig and saffron came from, too: Mountain Miso, Trunkey Bacon and Pork, and Argyle Saffron, all based in Orange. The truffle topping a lush comté tart is from “Sue and Andrew’s farm down the road” and smells much fresher than any of that Western Australian stuff that cryptobros like to shave over $200 steaks back in Sydney.

Piper makes his own ricotta every other day and currently teams it with poached beetroot. The reduced poaching liquid is seasoned with rosemary oil and apple cider vinegar, and the dish is exactly what you want to eat with De Salis Wines “Lofty” Pinot Noir, made on the northern slope of Mount Canobolas. For the cavatelli pasta with winter-slaying pork collar ragu, there’s a poised cabernet-shiraz blend made by Orange legend Philip Shaw under his Hoosegg label.

When so many NSW restaurants bang on about “supporting local producers” but have a wine list full of gear from France and the Barossa, Hey Rosey is a template for how to “farm to table” properly. It could also be Case Study 1A in any treatise that you don’t need to spend millions of dollars to open a ripper bar that people will flock to.

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