The Agrarian Kitchen
Restaurant · New Norfolk ·
Farm-to-table restaurant, cooking school, and garden tours
Farm-to-table restaurant, cooking school, and garden tours
"Around 90% of what you’ll find on the plates at this pretty regional restaurant close to Hobart can be found about 10 steps from the door. It’s one thing to grow the best possible produce. It’s quite another to nudge it and highlight it and coax it into previously unrealized heights of flavor, the way The Agrarian Kitchen team does. The nonalcoholic drinks pairing, which also draws heavily from the garden, might just be the best you’ll ever try." - Alexandra Carlton
"Housed in a converted 1830s mental asylum in Tasmania's Derwent Valley, this destination restaurant and cooking school emphasizes hyperlocal production—about 90% of ingredients come from on‑site greenhouses and gardens—and practices whole‑animal butchery, in‑house cheese and charcuterie, bread baking and preservation/fermentation. Offerings range from multi‑course tasting menus paired with predominantly Tasmanian beverages to casual kiosk fare enjoyed on the lawn, plus guided garden tours and hands‑on classes (cheesemaking, croissant baking, wild game cooking)." - Nicholas DeRenzo
"Rodney Dunn and Séverine Demanet, founders of the eponymous schoolhouse turned farm and the cooking school less than 10 minutes away, opened the Agrarian Kitchen Eatery in 2015 to share their produce and cooking with a wider audience. The light-flooded space, with original stampedtin reflecting off the high ceiling, is so beautiful you’d never guess it was once a mental asylum. The only mental hardship now is deciding what to order for lunch, whether it’s the wood-roasted southern lamb or the hot smoked bay trout. Still can't decide? For $70 per person, the kitchen will feed you the best dishes of the day. If you’re road tripping up the Derwent River, at least stop in for a biscuit or a lamington with Agrarian Kitchen jam."
"While you can walk between most of Hobart’s restaurants, the Agrarian Kitchen Eatery is worth a 35-minute drive (or 70-minute bus trip) to New Norfolk. Rodney Dunn and Séverine Demanet have transformed the town’s old mental asylum into a charming lunch destination showcasing produce from their own farm and the local area. Nearly everything is made in-house, including bread, cheese, and charcuterie (the chefs even use offcuts for XO sauce). Be sure to hit highlights like the fried sourdough potato cakes and seasonal vegetable dishes. Dunn also runs cooking classes at the farm alongside guest teachers from the community. [$$$ - $$$$]" - Audrey Bourget
"Rodney Dunn has long run the island’s best cooking school, the Agrarian Kitchen, in Derwent Valley, a lush spot just outside Hobart."