Fork to Fork

Tired of going to lunch at wineries? Yeah, me too. Wineries are so last year – the latest destination dining is in a garden.

Okay, that is not true. πŸ™‚ But we did eat lunch in a garden recently when Annette and Terry, Alastair’s mum and step-dad, arrived the other week for a visit. They arrived during the week when we had the beautiful autumn weather: coldish mornings, but lovely warm days, blue skies and wonderful sunsets. Having flown in from the UK, Annette and Terry were particularly happy to see the sunshine, and it was perfect weather for lunch at Fork to Fork. Fork to Fork is located in Heronswood, a garden that is the home of The Diggers Club.


The Diggers Club is Australia’s largest garden club and was formed in 1978. They specialise in unusual and heirloom plants, which can be purchased via mail order, or by visiting one of their nurseries – such as Heronswood. In addition to the garden nursery, Heronswood also has five separate vegetable gardens, as well as other extensive plantings, and a gorgeous seaview. Diggers Club members can take a walk through the gardens for free, while non-members have to pay $10.

The restaurant is located on the grounds of Heronswood in a lovely thatch roofed building – through the garden nursery. We got a bit distracted by the plants in the garden centre. There’s many interesting plants for purchase – such as a chocolate pudding fruit plant, so we took our time wandering through to the restaurant.

It was a beautiful day and pleasant enough to be able to sit outside. The menu is focused on seasonal ingredients, with many of the fruit and vegetables used grown organically in the gardens. Fish comes from the bay, the meat is free range, and their wine, beer and cheese is from Mornington Peninsula. Two courses costs $49 and three courses is $59.

We started with a plate of bread and olives (included in the price of lunch). The big bread roll was crusty and soft, and the olives were particularly good – not too salty and very moreish.

For entree, I decided to have the warm figs with proscuitto, peninsula honey and rocket. So did Alastair and Annette – obviously none of us can pass up an opportunity for figs. πŸ˜€

They were very simply done and the perfect autumn dish. The figs had been wrapped with proscuitto, baked, and then drizzled with honey. It was really nice, though there was a bit too much honey on the plate. I would have loved to have had some blue cheese with this – yum.

Terry’s choice was the warm beetroot salad with chives, walnuts and horseradish cream.

For mains, Terry and Alastair both had the pan roasted snapper with parsnip and fennel puree and garden silverbeet. They both said it was good.


Annette and I both went for the meaty option and had the roasted lamp rump with carrots, roast red onion, feta and spiced yoghurt. The meat was cooked to medium and was juicy and full of flavour, and the carrots and onion were just lovely. They probably could’ve left off the feta and yoghurt, since the lamb wasn’t spiced and it was rather good unadorned without any additional flavouring. It was quite a big serve though – I was very full afterwards, despite giving away some of my lamb to Alastair.

We didn’t have dessert and instead had a leisurely stroll back out through the garden centre and admired the view a bit more. It was a very nice place for lunch – the food was pretty straight forward but done well, and the location was lovely.

For more on Fork to Fork, check out Wandering Spice and Sharking for Chips and Drinks.


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Fork to Fork at Heronswood
105 Latrobe Parade
Dromana / Rosebud 3936
Phone: 03 5984 7318
Web: diggers.com.au

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