New home of luxury

Ballarat’s brand new boutique stay, Hotel Vera, and its accompanying restaurant Underbar, are part of a wider hospitality renaissance in the city.

By Paul Chai

Hotel Vera’s heritage, red-brick frontage on Sturt Street was described as a “handsome building” when it was first announced in the Ballarat Star in 1885 as the upcoming residence for surgeon Stanislaus Woinarski. Recently renovated by hoteliers David Cook-Doulton and Martin Shew, it is easy to imagine that Woinarski would appreciate the precision, effort and attention to detail that has gone into the building’s renewal.

But there is nothing clinical about the end result – Hotel Vera is a warm, inviting space where everything has been curated from the bottled cocktails in the mini bar (from Melbourne sustainable cocktail bar Byrdi) to Salus products on the bathroom shelves.

Through a four-year labour of love, Cook-Doulton and Shew have managed to create a dramatic impact but with a light touch. The original features of metal fireplaces and ornate cornices have all been maintained, public spaces have been kept neutral (so the colourful rooms can shine) and anything the pair have had to remove is being kept in an attic storage space for future use.

Technology like a hydraulic car stacker means they have saved a heritage outhouse for future use as a spa and there is a Porsche electronic charger mounted to the rear wall of the property. Hotel Vera celebrates the past but is looking firmly to the future.

“Ballarat is a town of stories and this building has a unique story to tell,” says Cook-Doulton. “We wanted our renovation to respect those stories already written whilst allowing us to add a new contemporary chapter. Firstly, we wanted to show how a historic landmark building could be restored in a respectful way and secondly to demonstrate how a new use could be both contemporary, yet respectful to the past.”

The team here don’t do cookie cutter. There are just seven suites and each is named for a nearby region and designed to reflect the area’s personality, so Ercildoune has a rosy colour scheme that reflects the soil colour of the area with an equally blush Anthea Kemp canvas Inside a Flower 2022 hung over the kingsized bed, while Sandon is a riot of blues echoing the local summer skies. Kingston is the rich green of the area’s potato fields and all the rooms have original porcelain works by artist Neville French.

“We wanted each suite to reflect the amazing landscapes of the Ballarat region with colour and texture creating a subtle link to the land,” Cook-Doulton says. “It was this link to the land that made Underbar the perfect companion restaurant, with locally sourced and foraged produce and synergies around sustainability and a celebration of local.”

Underbar And The New Ballarat Dining Scene

To call Underbar the hotel restaurant is to undersell things a little. Derek Boath trained with Thomas Keller at New York hotspot Per Se before settling in Ballarat to open Underbar, which was swiftly hatted.

It has always been a bespoke, intimate affair with barely a dozen tables. In its new home at Hotel Vera, Boath has 14 covers on weekends and he has designed the sustainable, gas-free kitchen to his own specs.

Boath draws on Japanese influences in his food too, and there is a sense of calm when you enter the kitchen from the door in Hotel Vera’s lobby. Boath is usually all focus, with Zen assembly of the intricate dishes. But that is thanks to a day’s worth of prep (and, for some dishes, a few days) so you are just seeing the very end, very delicious results of his days of labour.

Underbar’s cloud-light chawanmushi (egg custard) has been invited to the new digs with sweet spanner crab and corn but you might also find a whole deboned garfish and rice, wrapped in a nori roll with rich prawn bisque sauce. What you get depends on what Boath has been inspired by that week, so sit back and trust the process.

What you get served at Underbar depends on what chef Derek Boath has been inspired by that week, so sit back and trust the process.

When Underbar vacated its modest Doveton Street shopfront, Boath and his team quickly installed Pencilmark Wine Room – a more casual but equally delicious offering where you can get charcuterie, cheeses and tinned seafood from Portugal.

Boath is just the latest to champion the blossoming Ballarat food scene. Mr Jones’ modern Thai first received a regional hat from The Age Good Food Guide when it was Catfish Thai many years ago but it is still producing fiery-but-balanced degustation from chef Damien Jones, who trained at David Thompson’s Nahm in London.

One of the newest hat recipients is modern-Italian restaurant Ragazzone. It’s an ever-changing menu but the pasta is a favourite, often with swimmer crab or duck ragu enjoyed in an intimate setting.

Mitchell Harris Wines makes crisp, coldclimate wines in vineyards outside of town but you can enjoy these drops, and some simply cooked regional produce, at the Mitchell Harris Wine Bar in town – dishes like Shaw River buffalo mozzarella from Yambuk with shaved zucchini, yellow squash, lemon, mint and chilli.

At the riot of colour that is Pancho, you will have the best michelada this side of Central America, as well as ceviche, fish tacos and crisp tostadas topped with pork and avocado.

Breakfast is an event at Johnny Alloo, just a five-minute walk from Hotel Vera, where the chilli crab scrambled eggs do not hold back on the heat and the coffee is excellent. While over at Drive café in a former service station, the bacon and egg roll comes on a milk bun with jack cheddar and chilli and tomato jam.

Drinks-wise, Ballarat has such a strong claim on craft brewing that Melburnians head up for the day to drink at Hop Temple and its newer sister venue, Aunty Jacks –a shabby-chic live music venue with great beer snacks. For cocktails, head down the laneway to The 18th Amendment, a speakeasy with throwback cocktails like the Thomas Edison that puts vodka, melon and lychee into a light bulb.

The common ingredients across all these places are innovation, passion and a camaraderie that makes this very much a foodie movement rather than a disparate collection of restaurants. Ballarat has always been a city of craftspeople and it is the hospitality industry that is currently having its time to shine.