Your weekly taste of Australia’s best food, drinks and spirited discoveries
Welcome back to Uncorked & Forked.
This week we’re heading north, where a little coastal Sicily is about to land beside a Darwin swimming pool, complete with limoncello, local barramundi and long lunches.
We’re also celebrating Tasmania’s latest sparkling wine triumphs, opening a new Coonawarra Shiraz, finding a 127-year-old South Australian pub that refused to disappear and peering behind a vault door on the Sunshine Coast.
And with the AFL Grand Final upon us, we’ve found a Melbourne brewery prepared to give away beer until somebody kicks the first goal.
Dangerous… but I like it.
Darwin’s dining scene is getting a distinctly Mediterranean addition, with Lido at The Leea preparing to open in the heart of the city.
Think limoncello and Negronis by the pool, palm-filled gardens, long lunches and a menu taking the flavours of coastal Sicily and giving them a Top End accent.
The new open-air restaurant is part of The Leea, the former Travelodge on Cavenagh Street now undergoing an 18-month transformation. It also marks the first Darwin venture for family-owned Prendiville Group, whose venues include Samphire Rottnest and Tigerfish in Cottesloe.
At the helm is Darwin local and award-winning executive chef Samantha Bennett, with the menu overseen by Prendiville’s director of food Russell Blaikie.
Rather than importing Italy wholesale, they’re using the Territory to tell the story.
There’s burrata with Humpty Doo figs, walnut crumble and vincotto; calamari fritti with Calabrian chilli salt; and local snapper with pickled Humpty Doo mango.
For something more substantial, there’s taglierini with crab and chilli garlic cream, grilled Coorong Angus sirloin with salsa verde and an acqua pazza built around Humpty Doo barramundi, tomato and white wine.
Dessert stays suitably Italian-Australian: tiramisu or meringue with berries, native rosella and cream.
The best part is the philosophy behind the place.
Lido borrows from the Italian tradition of dolce far niente — the sweetness of doing nothing — and applies it to Darwin. Find a shady spot, order a spritz and a few plates and don’t be in too much of a hurry to leave.
Sounds pretty sensible in the Top End.
Lido opens October 12 at The Leea, 64 Cavenagh Street, Darwin. Reservations open October 5.
A famous Australian label has added something new to the family.
Wynns Black Label Old Vines Shiraz 2024 is part of the winery’s new 2026 Wynnsday collection, putting one of Coonawarra’s other great red varieties centre stage alongside the Cabernet for which the estate is best known.
And “old vines” isn’t simply marketing decoration. Wynns has been growing Shiraz in Coonawarra for generations, including vineyards planted as far back as the 1890s.
The new release sits firmly in classic Coonawarra territory, with dark berry fruit, spice and the region’s familiar structure, but at $45 it’s thankfully nowhere near trophy-wine pricing.
My Verdict: Coonawarra usually has me thinking Cabernet, which is precisely why this caught my eye. Old-vine Shiraz from one of Australia’s great historic producers at a price that still encourages you to actually open it.
The Region: Coonawarra, South Australia
Best with: Lamb cutlets, roast beef or a good steak.
RRP $45.
If we’re pouring bubbles this week, we may as well pour Australia’s newly crowned best.
Radenti Grand Vintage 2016 has just been named Best Wine in Show at the 2026 Australian Sparkling Wine Show, with the awards announced at MONA in Hobart this week.
Radenti comes from Freycinet Vineyard on Tasmania’s east coast, where the cool maritime conditions have helped build the state’s formidable reputation for sparkling wine.
There’s also something rather appealing about drinking a 10-year-old Australian vintage sparkling rather than automatically reaching for Champagne whenever there’s something worth celebrating.
My Verdict: Fresh trophy, Tasmanian pedigree and a decade behind it. With Grand Final weekend here, the timing couldn’t be better. If you’re popping a cork, why not make it Australian?
The Region: East Coast, Tasmania
Best with: Oysters, smoked salmon, fish and chips — or one very large premiership celebration.
Dust off the Union Jack. The Pig & Whistle at Main Ridge is going full British for its inaugural Great British Weekend on Sunday, October 25.
There’ll be British beer, gin and wine, high tea, artisan cheese and a fully stocked British snack shop alongside live music, circus acts, vintage cars, market stalls and lawn games.
Then come the special guests: British bulldogs and Highland cows.
The Mornington Peninsula pub is effectively turning itself into a little corner of Britain for the day, with plenty of tastings and enough British treats for anyone still pining for a proper UK lolly aisle.
Tickets are $15 online, kids under 12 are free and every ticket holder receives an event tote bag.
The Great British Weekend runs 10am–5pm on Sunday, October 25 at The Pig & Whistle, 365 Purves Road, Main Ridge.
Jamie Oliver has built a career out of convincing home cooks that good food doesn’t need to be complicated.
His latest book strips things back even further.
20 Minute Meals: Real Fast Food contains recipes designed to go from kitchen to table in 20 minutes or less, using no more than 10 ingredients.
There’s fish pie pasta bake, gnocchi peperonata and fragrant lamb and aubergine hotpot, along with meat-free dishes and plenty aimed squarely at that eternal question: what on earth are we having for dinner tonight?
Why it’s on my radar: Another Jamie Oliver cookbook isn’t exactly breaking news. But proper dinners, sensible ingredient lists and 20 minutes in the kitchen? That’s a book I’d actually leave on the bench rather than admire on the shelf.
20 Minute Meals: Real Fast Food by Jamie Oliver was released in Australia on September 15, 320 pages, RRP $59.99.
No sign. Only a vault door.
Behind it is Hid Den, a tiny new 20-seat speakeasy in Mooloolaba on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
The team behind whisky bar WAT Den has taken inspiration from Japan’s tiny drinking dens and omakase counters, creating an intimate bar where the drinks involve fire, smoke and a little theatre.
Take your seat and you’re handed a bowl of spiced popcorn and three words: “enjoy the show”.
The cocktail list mixes Japanese flavours and techniques with the playful stuff you’d expect from a bar deliberately hidden from the street.
Owner Dean Mariani says the idea was partly inspired by travelling through Japan and discovering intimate bars tucked away from view.
Our take: Twenty seats, a secret vault door, Japanese inspiration and cocktails involving flames and smoke.
That’s sufficiently bonkers for us.
The Yunta Hotel has stood beside the Barrier Highway for 127 years, about 320km north of Adelaide, serving its tiny outback community and travellers making the long haul towards Broken Hill.
Earlier this year, however, the taps stopped flowing.
The pub closed and Yunta faced something no small Australian town particularly wants: life without its local.
Enter Jacki and Rob Williams.
The couple had spent six years working at the Peterborough Caravan Park and had long talked about running a pub themselves. When Yunta became available, they packed up and moved in.
The locals embraced them, the beer started flowing again and a 127-year-old piece of outback South Australia got another chapter.
Our take: Local Legend isn’t always about the grandest pub or fanciest counter meal and sometimes it’s about keeping the doors open, the beer cold and a tiny town’s meeting place alive.
Until next Friday… keep discovering, keep tasting and never drive past a country pub on an empty stomach.
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