3 minute read
Phillippa’s Flinders and beyond
Phillippa Grogan is a household name for many food-lovers. The baker and chef founded her eponymous bakery and food store in Armadale nearly 30 years ago. Since then, she and her husband, Andrew O’Hara, have expanded the business supplying shops and grocers with their baked goods and provisions. Phillippa has an eye for good food and has spent the best part of every summer of her life swimming, sailing, walking and eating on the Peninsula, and spends weekends at her house in Flinders. She shares some of her favourite places and food experiences on the Peninsula.
“As a baker I look for great bread. I love what Margaret and David do at Flinders Sourdough. They run the original wood-fired oven and bake true sourdough. They also do a beach bun full of dried vine and stone fruit and topped with granular sugar. So good with a cup of strong tea mid-morning. Another bakery I rate highly is Miller’s in Dromana. It’s tucked in near Aldi, and they bake great cakes. They make great textured focaccia with an array of toppings. On Thursdays they have a pizza night called Papa Ragu’s – I love the capricciosa made with speck, anchovies and hand-stretched mozzarella.
“I have always dropped into the Merricks General Store on the way to Flinders. It first opened in the early 1920s, and I remember back in the 1980s the 25 cent sausage rolls being scoffed down by hungry surfers. It’s now a high-end cafe and cellar door for Baillieu Wines and Elgee Park. I like picking up a coffee and a sausage roll before walking up the old rail trail to Red Hill South.
“One of the most beautiful little cellar doors on the Peninsula is Foxeys Hangout. It’s small, with a balcony looking out over the vineyards. Owners Tony and Michael Lee have been serving a small, wine-friendly menu for over a decade. I love the misoglazed salmon and a glass of pinot gris. I always get a bottle of sparkling shiraz to put in the cellar. It’s a great Christmas bubbly.
“There is a long-time Flinders resident who now makes exceptional Vietnamese pho. Don Evans grew up, went to school and raised a family here. He and Vietnamese-born Chien have a little pho shop specialising in their rich, aromatic, almost clear broth in which they serve rice noodles, won tons, or even stuffed bitter melon.
“On a sunny day it is very easy to pull into Red Hill Brewery. In summer you can see the hops growing in the garden. By autumn they are ready for harvest. They produce limited releases like the bourbon cask stout and Belgian and French-influenced beers. I always pick up some of the beautifully balanced pale ale.
“A picnic on Flinders Beach is one of our simplest food and wine pleasures. Towards sunset we pack our basket with some Main Ridge goat’s cheese, some of my biscuits and a bottle of bubbles from Trofeo Estate. We pop a cork, and the clouds roll in off Bass Strait and the last rays of the day paint them deep orange against a mauve and pink sky. It is very dramatic.”
