The Verandah Restaurant
Calais Estate Winery
151 Palmers Lane
Pokolbin, Hunter Valley NSW
The Verandah Restaurant is a bit hidden away but it’s we’ll worth finding. Sitting upstairs at Calais Estate, they serve a range of tapas and sharing dishes - as well as some bigger plates too. It’s a long room with - you guessed it - a sweeping verandah outside that wrap around it. In summer or for lunch it would be magnificent. On a chilly night it’s best to grab an inside table, preferably close to the roaring fireplace they have going on cold nights.
We started with some lovely soup. It was sweet potato and coconut lime soup topped with garlic chive pieces. The small cups were a nice touch too and made it very easy to consume!
With the fireplace roaring in the background we moved on to the terrine with toasted bread. The flavours were great and they didn’t skimp on the dish at all.
We then had the rather unusual Mexican corn and blackbean balls that came with a chunky tomato salsa. They did turn out to be a tasty addition to the tapas evening.
A bigger serving was next - the Szechuan floured baby calamari. It came drizzled in palm sugar dressing and sprinkled with sesame seeds. This was a delicious dish and we eagerly devoured it. The calamari was very tender.
Our final “main” was the free range Hunter Valley chicken tossed in fresh pasta. It came tossed in a tasty tomato puree with fresh peas. The flavours all went so well together and it was a lovely “cold night” dish to have in front of a fireplace.
Our sweet finale was some Spanish churros coated in cinnamon sugar. They had a glass of dark chocolate dipping sauce with them that we used heavily. It was indulgent but such a great dessert.
This is a pretty place. The room itself is very large but we didn’t notice particularly as we were down one end near the fireplace. As it was night time we didn’t venture out on the sprawling verandah but it looked like a perfect lunchtime or early evening spot. It was a lovely place to sip our sangria’s and eat our food.
We were farewelled from our visit by some of the “locals”. We left full from our meal and satisfied.