... many years ago, maybe twelve, I knew what it felt like to be a bird in a nest perched high in the tallest tree on earth.
It wasn't a nest. It was Chris Talihmanidis' Beacon Point restaurant, above Apollo Bay, and it was November in 1993, and I remember that because it was our very first weekend away.
To reach the restaurant, you drive from Apollo Bay directly up the coastal escarpment that rises dramatically behind the town like some fossilised glacier. Well, not directly upwards, there are hairpin bends. I love hairpin bends on the way to dinner. They make the first gin and tonic taste so much better.
Parking at Chris's is a no-brainer as long as you don't forget to apply the handbrake. You could drive right off the scenery. (And after dinner, how easy it would be to slip the auto into drive instead of reverse. Hello, Apollo Bay.)
Anyway it's November 1993 and there we are, Miss T. and me, at Chris's Beacon Point restaurant and the menus are thrust in front of us but we're not really studying them because who studies a menu when you're away for your first weekend with your new love? and the view out the window is like you're in an eagle's nest? and the whole weekend stretches out before you like an unwritten book ...
I suppose it's odd that I can remember what we ate.
A Greek salad, of course (you're going to order any other kind from a guy called Talihmanidis?); a kind of rustic gourmet pizza with goat's cheese, salmon, roasted peppers, olives and maybe something else (capers?); and a sublime piece of fish grilled quickly with lemon and drizzled with a little green olive oil and specked with cracked pepper. Fries as light as cotton on the side.
Later there was dessert and later still the sun completed its journey down the floor-to-ceiling glass wall and sank red into the Southern Ocean. I thought I heard it hiss but it was only the coffee machine in the kitchen.
It wasn't a nest. It was Chris Talihmanidis' Beacon Point restaurant, above Apollo Bay, and it was November in 1993, and I remember that because it was our very first weekend away.
To reach the restaurant, you drive from Apollo Bay directly up the coastal escarpment that rises dramatically behind the town like some fossilised glacier. Well, not directly upwards, there are hairpin bends. I love hairpin bends on the way to dinner. They make the first gin and tonic taste so much better.
Parking at Chris's is a no-brainer as long as you don't forget to apply the handbrake. You could drive right off the scenery. (And after dinner, how easy it would be to slip the auto into drive instead of reverse. Hello, Apollo Bay.)
Anyway it's November 1993 and there we are, Miss T. and me, at Chris's Beacon Point restaurant and the menus are thrust in front of us but we're not really studying them because who studies a menu when you're away for your first weekend with your new love? and the view out the window is like you're in an eagle's nest? and the whole weekend stretches out before you like an unwritten book ...
I suppose it's odd that I can remember what we ate.
A Greek salad, of course (you're going to order any other kind from a guy called Talihmanidis?); a kind of rustic gourmet pizza with goat's cheese, salmon, roasted peppers, olives and maybe something else (capers?); and a sublime piece of fish grilled quickly with lemon and drizzled with a little green olive oil and specked with cracked pepper. Fries as light as cotton on the side.
Later there was dessert and later still the sun completed its journey down the floor-to-ceiling glass wall and sank red into the Southern Ocean. I thought I heard it hiss but it was only the coffee machine in the kitchen.
Chris's is actually a few k's on the Melbourne side of Apollo Bay above Skene's Creek, but absolutely like being in an eagles nest - even more so if you rent one of his several (one or two bedroom) villas that hang off the top of the hill within 50 metres of the restaurant. You can sit at the outmost point of the living area (with it's own kitchen) and actually look back at the retaurant itself, while a sideways glance reveals the lights of Apollo Bay a few k's and a hundred metres or so) below to the west. A truly great Aussie location. I've been an occasional patron of Chris's since he was at Lorne on the site of the now 'Cumberland' time-share monstrosity back in the 70's - 80's. I am not related..merely a fan of his operation.
ReplyDelete