Robbie Pacheco
After half a decade of booked-out evenings in Surry Hills, Australian-born chef Dylan Cashman is taking his acclaimed restaurant The Blue Door to the Mid North Coast, following the closure of its Sydney outpost earlier this year.
Opening in a heritage-listed former bank in Bellingen on 18 September, the restaurant’s regional relocation is a result of more than just rising rental prices for Cashman and his wife, co-owner and wine director, Angelica Nohra.
“We felt we could no longer offer the authentic version of ourselves in Sydney,” Cashman tells Gourmet Traveller. “It’s become geared up against small farmers – group-led venues aren’t purchasing whole animals off small farmers, [so] the farmers don’t bother trying to deliver to Sydney…we saw so many of our amazing farmers shut down that we didn’t have a connection with our concept there anymore. The only way for The Blue Door to grow was to move to the countryside.”
Hailing from Crescent Head, the sea change marks a homecoming for Cashman, whose ethos of hyperlocal sustainably sourced produce, whole-animal butchery and seasonality underpins The Blue Door’s whole MO.
Shaped by his time at Fins in Kingscliff, Sean’s and Paper Daisy – as well as at the Michelin-starred Vendôme in Germany – Cashman’s commitment to sourcing his produce from personally-vetted vendors within a 100-kilometre radius is on full display in Bellingen – down to the eleven dining tables cut, milled and made by his uncle and cousin from a single tree. Crockery too comes from New South Wales ceramicists Gabs Wallington and Leia Sherbolm, while local Indigenous artist Jason Ridgeway is behind the feature artwork.
As with its Surry Hills format, a seven-course tasting menu offers the best of what’s available that week. “To me, seasonality is weekly,” Cashman explains. “We change the menu based on what the farmers have – we don’t push them to have things ready when they aren’t.”
Depending on the week, this might include whole animals – from pasture-raised beef and regenerative pigs to line-caught iki jime fish – sourced from the farms in the area and butchered by the team on-site, or whatever organic fruit and vegetables are available from the regenerative growers nearby.
Anchoring the wine list is an exclusively New South Wales menu curated by Nohra, which spotlights young winemakers, emerging producers and female winemakers.
Around the corner from the main dining room, a six-seat bar and four-seat front patio, known as The Blue Door Wine Bar, offers a more casual, snack-led experience – with walk-ins welcome daily.
Cashman isn’t the first chef to trade the city for greener pastures. Icebergs Dining Room and Bar’s culinary director Alex Prichard recently swapped ocean views for rich soil in Berry, while Sydney favourite Three Blue Ducks has put down roots on a 600-acre regenerative farm in Burradoo. And after 24-year stint at the top of Sydney’s dining game, Peter Gilmore has swapped (for now) his chef whites for garden gloves in Hobart. Call it a trend, a homecoming or simply a different way forward, the countryside is proving increasingly hard for chefs to resist.
The Blue Door Bellingen is open for dinner Thursday – Saturday and lunch on the weekends; The Wine Bar is open daily from 5.30pm. Bookings are available online via their website.
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