Steve Cumper is a chef who likes things a bit rustic and funky. He’s also a food blogger, an aspiring writer, is into quirky pop culture and likes to get his hands dirty growing things on his small farm holding near Cygnet. And it was he who put Peppermint Bay on the map with menus that celebrated the region’s produce back in the days when it first opened.
During the day, it’s a café serving such goodies as smoked Huon salmon blinis, rich chicken liver pate, good soups, hand-made gnocchi, coffee and cakes, the most famous of which is his Banoffee cake layered with toffee and fresh bananas for which, I’m told, people drive from Hobart especially.
On Friday and Saturday nights, it moves up a notch or two into restaurant mode with an emphasis whenever possible, on local, in-season produce. Our dinner, for example, finished with a delicious cherry clafoutis from fruit we’d seen being picked in orchards as we drove in.
Evening menus change each week and previous ones have featured pheasant, duck, pigeon, steaks sometimes and country-style terrines. In a month’s time, it will be the simplicity and unbeatable freshness of crostini topped with heritage tomatoes and local olive oil or tomatoes diced with coriander and herbs to roll Asian-style in fresh wasabi leaves and eaten with your fingers.
At dinner I enjoyed a simple entree of fennel brandade and taramasalata with a lovely dressed fennel salad and crusty olive bread fingers while my wife was a tad under-whelmed by a cooked selection of small potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, beans, radish, asparagus and spring onion with a duck-egg aioli. Far from underwhelming however was her pork coteletta, cooked perfectly with a crisp gremolada crust and beautiful, juicy white flesh inside. Set against the sweet/sourness of an accompanying red cabbage, mint and pea salad, the dish was a beauty.
From a well-selected and priced list of Tasmanian wines, and a small blackboard mainland selection for those who don’t know any better, we splurged on a bottle of the excellent D’Meure 2006 Pinot Noir from just over a few hills and down the road at Birchs Bay.
Cumper is also one of the best bread-making chefs around and will shortly have the old Scotch oven attached to the premises up and firing with plans for wood-fired pizzas and wood-oven roasts, plus, of course – or at least I hope – some of his great breads.
Entrees $15.90; mains $24.90 to $27.90; desserts $12.90; a platter of local cheeses, apple bread and crackers $22.90
