HIGH HOPES ROADHOUSE

restaurant HIGH HOPES ROADHOUSE

Words Julie Gibbs Photographs Luke Burgess

It’s a Thursday morning and you are driving up the Bells Line of Road from Sydney after wrestling with a traffic snarl in the harbour tunnel.

You are dreaming of a toasted sandwich made from local sourdough bread, sweet hand-carved leg ham and melting Gruyere cheese, accompanied by coffee that tastes as good as it smells. You come across a cute sign that says ‘High Hopes Roadhouse’, walk in, and a Mick Jagger look-alike gives you the most welcoming smile. You sit down near a pine dresser piled with books, kitchen treasure, a vase of fragrant daphne and a cockatoo lamp. Around the wood stove is a circle of women working at their spinning wheels.

In the back, a sign leads to the ‘High Hopes Sweet Shop’. Can it possibly be true?

You have entered the happy and nurturing roadside café run by Manoo Robertson and his husband Sean Moran (of the famous Sean’s restaurant in Bondi), named ‘High Hopes’ as an antidote to the devastating bushfires last summer that were followed by COVID-19. Manoo and Sean felt a calling to give their community a refuge where locals—and visitors—could have some hope of old-fashioned happiness and comfort. A café where travellers and truck drivers can eat a home-style meal on their way up the mountain and where locals heading to Bilpin Post Office (located in a seventiesstyle ‘servo’ next door) can drop in for mushrooms on toast with a cuppa, or something stronger.

The building has a history as a stopping place. It was originally called Midways, being halfway between Sydney and Lithgow, and in recent years was known as the Apple Bar. Sean and Manoo’s farm is a stone’s throw from here. Sean says he had a funny

feeling the cafe would be his, the first time he went there. Now that it is, he and Manoo are having the best time. Sean wants it to feel ‘like home; nothing fancy pants’. He has been scouring Gumtree for old furniture and the standard issue café tables and chairs have been replaced with pieces we might feel belonged to our grandparents. Sean loves to wield a paintbrush, so you’ll notice the joyful stripes along the counter and the charming handmade signs.

The aim is to employ locals and train them so that they can have hospitality experience on their CV; word has gone around and they come calling to seek a job. Savanna Jurevics, a young woman from a hotel management school—who has a passion for cooking—is now the head chef, shown the ropes by Sean and trusted to put love into dishes that include beef chipolatas with onion, gravy and peas and a side of roesti; free-range chicken nuggets with mayo; and cauliflower macaroni cheese with Willowbrae goat’s feta. Salad comes from the farm. Ben’s apple pie is strictly not to be missed—made by Ben Porteous from The Hive Berambing, up the road.

As well as the sweet shop in the back (a nod to Manoo’s nostalgia for his childhood in England), you will find local vinegars, honey, jam and Sam’s outstanding sauerkraut, made by Manoo’s nephew who is a chef at Sean’s restaurant in Bondi.

You don’t have to be on the way anywhere. Just make High Hopes a lunch destination— it’s a perfect day trip. n The High Hopes Roadhouse is open for dropin guests 7 days from 8 am–4 pm, and now for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. 2488 Bells Line of Road, Bilpin NSW.

Above A kitsch cockatoo lamp makes a quirky, homely display; the Roadhouse kitchen. Opposite page The Sweet Shop is Manoo’s childhood dream; old-fashioned happiness on a plate.