Gourmet delights!

Essence Food for the Soul is a gourmet offering focused on creating quality meals for high end retailers and their discerning clientele. At the heart of Essence are creative duo Jim and Mel who met working at a friends’ restaurant. Ten years following wedding celebrations at Portsea, they discovered their dream business just across the road.

Classic Hinterland

What can we tell you about the Cellar and Pantry? Well for starters this is a place people come from near and afar to enjoy. You can eat in, take out or take home a delectable array of local fresh produce, local and imported deli or cellar items home. Either way it is worthy of your time. On the busiest of days you’ll order coffee and something scrumptious to eat at the window, you’ll go inside to forage for pantry items to take home until your name is called out whereby you’ll stop everything to find a seat on the iconic deck to enjoy the moment. If there aren’t any?

Yabby Lake Lunch

There’s nothing we love more than getting off the beaten track. Abby Lake is one of these destinations - frequented by many, yet tucked away and hidden from some, as they approach the Balnarring exit (off the Peninsula Link). These days, running a restaurant let alone winery on the Pen is highly competitive, with so many wonderful options on offer. It’s no longer just about offering great food and wine but rather the stories and experience behind the vineyard, and Yabby Lake has this in abundance. Is it exceptional hand crafted wines passed from winemaker to cellar door you are looking for?

Whispering Vines

Trofeo Estate is situated on the iconic Harrisons Road precinct of Dromana - in the 1930’s it was a passionfruit plantation - it is one of the Pen’s oldest vineyards but newest wineries. From the moment you enter the property, with it’s oak lined driveway, you’re surrounded by vines & beautiful rural views.

Cooking with Kids cookery class at Georgie Bass Cafe & Cookery

This class is a fun and interactive session where your kids can get involved in the cooking process of building healthy burgers, flipping fruit piklets and baking mini pizzas, before washing it all down with colourful and tasty smoothies. Ideally suited for 12 to 16 year olds, parent's attendance required.

Picture-perfect backdrop in Dromana

Zac and Jacqui Poulier, established Stillwater at Crittenden in 2004. Both have extensive culinary experience in Melbourne, and around the world. After working and travelling the world together, they returned to the Pen and the rest as they say is history.

Harvested by hand in Red Hill

The Red Hill Lavender Farm & Distillery produces a small variety of exceptional & effective products containing only pure essential oils – it’ a dream come true for Kylie and Brad Crump and their daughters. Inspired by the beauty of Provence, they hand-planted fields of lavender.