* So if you’ve ever wanted your dinner to travel less than you do on your commute to work, this is that kind of meal
For years, “farm-to-table” has been one of hospitality’s favourite phrases. At Burradoo Park Farm (a five minute drive from Bowral), Three Blue Ducks is making it unusually literal.
On June 18, the group with the name that resembles a nursery rhyme opens its new flagship restaurant in the middle of a 600-acre regenerative farm in the Southern Highlands and builds its menu around whatever the farm grows, grazes, and harvests at any given time.
In other words, this is probably the only dinner reservation you’ll make this year where the vegetables have travelled less distance than you did.
The new venue marks the final piece of the Burradoo Park Farm puzzle. Founded by Annie Cannon-Brookes, the sprawling property has spent the past year quietly evolving into one of Australia’s most ambitious agritourism projects, with The Bakehouse and The Farmhouse by Three Blue Ducks already drawing a steady stream of Southern Highlands locals, Sydney weekenders and people who somehow always know where the good sourdough is.
Now comes the headline act.
Set inside a beautifully restored 1823 farmhouse, the intimate 45-seat restaurant overlooks working regenerative farmland and centres around two multi-course dining experiences: a five-course Field Menu and a seven-course Harvest Menu.
If you’re expecting a menu designed six months ago and laminated into permanence, think again.
The entire offering moves with the farm. What is growing today may not be growing next month. What is harvested next week may shape an entirely different dish by spring.
Newly appointed head chef Rhys Connell leads the kitchen, bringing experience from some of Australia’s most respected dining rooms, including Sepia, Society, and Cutler & Co. Working alongside group executive chef Troy Crisante and under the guidance of co-owners Darren Robertson and Andy Allen, Connell’s brief is deceptively simple: let the produce do the talking.
Thankfully, the produce appears to have quite a lot to say.
The opening menu begins with snacks including puntarelle with red-spot prawn and chilli, alongside radicchio topped with brook trout roe and macadamia. A signature cover-crop salad transforms regenerative farming principles into something far more enjoyable than a sustainability seminar, combining sprouted grains, buttered turnips, buckwheat and garlic chives.
Elsewhere, the restaurant’s whole-animal philosophy is on full display. Wiltipol lamb arrives alongside sheep’s yoghurt and shiso, and the kitchen slow-roasts, braises and smokes the cuts before pairing them with leaves grown specifically for the dish.
Even the supporting players tell a story.
Bread arrives courtesy of The Bakehouse. Broths are made using carcasses and bones from chickens served at The Farmhouse. Ingredients move across the property with a kind of closed-loop efficiency that feels refreshingly practical rather than performative.
Dessert continues the local theme, drawing on rhubarb from Phil Lavers at Moonacres Farm, alongside quince, lavender and a final course built around potatoes grown both on-site and by the Hill family in nearby Robertson.
The drinks list follows the same philosophy.
Overseen by group beverage manager Mem Hemmings, it champions thoughtful producers from the Southern Highlands and beyond, including Dawning Day Farms, Werkstatt and Henschke. Cocktails lean heavily into what’s available seasonally, with options such as the Burradoo Royale combining Brookie’s gin with clarified pear, cucumber, kohlrabi lees and finger lime.
Then there’s the Top Soil, a drink featuring agave spirit, beetroot, tomato, fennel and pickled strawberry, which sounds either incredibly intriguing or like something your vegetable garden would order after work.
Importantly, the restaurant isn’t designed to exist in isolation.
Visitors can spend the morning at The Bakehouse working through Portuguese tarts, croissants and Single O coffee before wandering across to The Farmhouse for a produce-led lunch or a browse through the farm store, which stocks everything from local honey to candles and wellness products.
Together, the three venues create something that feels increasingly rare: a hospitality destination where every part of the experience connects back to the same piece of land.
And while “farm-to-table” may have become an overused phrase over the years, Burradoo Park Farm is making a compelling argument for why the concept caught on in the first place.
Because when dinner starts a few hundred metres from the dining room, it turns out there’s not much need to overcomplicate things.
