Under the sea. In a treehouse. By the side of lake where the water is pale pink. Good food is sometimes served in the most unlikely of locations – even a former caravan park shower block!
There’s a special thrill to a hidden restaurant, to a meal where even finding the place feels like an achievement. Whether it’s an eatery in an unexpected location, a one-off pop-up or a tiny table in a home kitchen – like the and its table for two that started Rachel Khoo’s television career – this kind of restaurant offers the unexpected, and not just in terms of location. The food, too, can be extraordinary.
Here are eight hidden restaurants we’d like to nab a seat at right now.
Food on the move
In Hidden Restaurants, a four-part series on SBS (Wednesdays 8.35pm, then on ), chef Michel Roux Jnr has the far-from-onerous task of visiting some extraordinary restaurants. On more than one occasion, as he heads down laneways and through gardens, he thinks he’s come to the wrong place. It’s “very, very rustic”, he says doubtfully as he tries to track down one particular roving restaurant in a tiny village in Somerset in England. While Roux is later delighted by the restaurant (a pop-up with a single purpose – to convert people to eating goat), there’s no such confusion about the amazing feasts served by in Western Australia.
Showcasing local native produce at events across the state, Fervor puts on meals at locations as diverse as outback paddocks, beaches and art galleries. Upcoming events include several where the venue is given solely as “secret location”. Chef and owner Paul Iskov’s CV includes experience at noma and COI, so it’s not surprising that the events show huge respect for the land, traditional owners and responsible harvesting, and that the food gets glowing reviews. Upcoming events include a degustation dinner next to the pink lake at Port Gregory and an event with Dale Tillbrook at the Maalinup Aboriginal Gallery in the Swan Valley.
Behind closed doors
The puertas cerradas of Buenos Aires are of Argentina’s biggest attractions for food lovers. The ‘closed door restaurants’ run the gamut from open kitchens where you can watch your meal being made to a table tucked in among shelves of wine. Some are by word of mouth only, but others are a little easier to get into. If you’re lucky enough to be heading to Buenos Aires, take a look to see if you can nab a table at some of the most popular examples, including the popular .
Who doesn’t love a secret room?
It’s not really a secret anymore, but there’s still something wonderful about the idea of a room that can be completely hidden away just by shutting a door. The Barlow Bar at (which is named after its laneway location off Adelaide’s Rundle Mall) is tucked away behind an ornamental fireplace.
Treehouse tables
Alnwick Garden in England is home to , a wooden-clad structure that looks like something from a fairy-tale. Accessed by wooden walkways and rope bridges, the treehouse hosts an 80-seat restaurant with a fire in winter (yes, they do have to be rather careful about that!) and a menu that includes produce from the garden.
It’s one of the extraordinary restaurants showcased in Hidden Restaurants, but you don’t have to travel to the UK for a stunning treehouse restaurant experience. Australia has its own breathtaking green rooms, including the at the award-winning Silky Oaks Lodge in north Queensland, which was named last year.
This was once a …
Fine diner in a caravan park? Unlikely. Fine diner in a former amenities block, at a caravan park on an island? Rather less likely. But on the Welsh island of Anglesey, the restaurant set up by two brothers draws food pilgrims to the caravan site owned by their parents. The food at gets , too, although apparently there was a little confusion in the early days. “The old shower blocks for the campsite used to be inside the restaurant so you’d have people walking in in their speedos with a towel over them while somebody was eating a bowl of mussels and a sirloin steak,” says one of the brothers, Ellis Berry, when Hidden Restaurants pays a visit.
Down a laneway, round the corner
If any Australian city could claim to the home of the hidden restaurant, it’s Melbourne. It’s a badge of pride to make into some of the tucked away, minimally sign-posted (or no signage at all!) cafes and restaurants scattered across the city, and picking just one to represent them all is almost as hard as finding some of them. But we’re going to give the nod to , for three reasons.
First, it’s just the right degree of ‘hidden’ - down a CBD laneway, but not so hard to find that you’ll end up lost and hungry an hour after you were supposed to be at your table. There’s even a nice, obvious sign. Second, it sits on a site that was once home to a popular nightclub called Honky Tonks, so it’s got a nice gilding of history. And third, the food. It’s modern Indian, kinda, with an Australian influence, and it’s good (not surprisingly, given it’s by the same team as the popular – another laneway hero that’s been making Melbourne happy for almost a decade now).
Fine food afloat
At , another of the unusual places visited in Hidden Restaurants, you can only get to your table by boat – that’s because the café runs on a custom-built barge that floats in the Exe Estuary, at Exmouth in England. The only way to get there is to take one of the charmingly named Puffin water taxis, or to arrive on your own boat. The restaurant, which is only open from April to September, serves as many as 200 meals a day. Seafood features prominently on the menu, including mussels harvested from the River Exe – from almost literally under the chef’s feet. .
You can find a barge restaurant closer to home: in Victoria sits on a 100-year-old moored barge. You could eat in – unsurprisingly, the fish and chips are popular – but we rather like the fact that folks spending the day on their own boat can order ahead, pull up alongside and have Boat House staff lower down lunch.
Under the water
If dining on the water doesn’t feel hidden enough, there’s always UNDER the water. is a stunning undersea restaurant located at Rangali Island, in the Maldives. The glass walls offer panoramic views of the waters overhead and the surrounding coral gardens.
There’s a similar feel at in Valencia, a restaurant set within fish-filled walls at the Oceanogràfic aquarium.
Want to discover more great places in unlikely locations? Watch Hidden Restaurants with Michel Roux Jnr Wednesdays 8.35pm on SBS from September 12 then on .
More eats worth the effort
The fiery joy of malatang, a type of Sichuan hot pot that comes in a bowl for one
