StillwaterRicthie's Mill
2 Bridge Rd
Launceston, TAS 7250
(03) 6331-4153
WebsiteDown by the banks of the Tamar River, at the mouth of the Cataract Gorge in Launceston, is a lovely little restaurant called Stillwater. They're actually the sister restaurant of the
Black Cow Bistro (Stillwater was there first!), and do slightly cheffier food in a rustic setting. They do breakfast, lunch and dinner, and we actually visited twice during our 3 days in Launceston - once for dinner, and again for breakfast!
Upon walking in, we felt that the restaurant was quite a bit more formal than Black Cow, with very polite waitstaff calling you "ma'am" and so on. Interestingly, customers tended to dress quite casually - lots of hoodies and jeans.
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| Crusty bread roll... included in the price! Hehe. |
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| Butter and salt |
Here is my entrée - black lipped abalone with pickled cucumber. I'd never ordered abalone myself before, mainly because I don't like the idea of eating non-sustainable seafood. But I asked our waiter, and this abalone was farmed off the east coast of Tassie, near Hobart. Overall I found the dish a little sour, but the abalone itself was fresh and cooked perfectly.
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| East Coast black lipped abalone - pickled cucumber, yellow rock sugar, iceberg lettuce and wakame crostoli. $32 |
Sandra had a cheese soufflé to start. It was quite rich, so it was good that it came with a nice refreshing salad. Incidentally, all the different farms and stockists mentioned on the menu (Heidi Farms, 41° South, Yorktown Organics etc.), would probably be interesting places to visit for a daytrip.
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| Heidi Farm Gruyere soufflé - chive sabayon, candied walnut and pear salad. $18 |
I was in the mood for lamb, and absolutely loved my main course! A rare lamb rack, sliced into individual chops, and prettily arranged on top of small salad leaves, sweet and tender carrots, and smoky baba ghanoush. If we hadn't been in a public I would have picked up each of the little bones and gnawed the last bits of the meat off. Delicious!
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| Rack of Clover Country lamb - 41° South ginseng spiced, baba ghanoush, glazed baby carrots and preserved lemon yoghurt. $39 |
Sandra's main was something I think many Melbourne foodies would love - eye fillet with whipped jamón serrano butter and a crispy jamón serrano shard. It had a great mix of sweet (baby beets) and salty (jamon), but Sandra said it the smokiness of the jamón became a bit overpowering.
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| Eye fillet of grass-fed Greenham Tasmania natural beef - textures of Yorktown Organics beets, whipped Jamón Serrano butter and Jamón Serrano shard. $39 |
We only got one side - butter roasted Swiss brown mushrooms, with thyme and garlic chips. Juicy and tasty!
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| Butter roasted swiss brown mushrooms, thyme & garlic chips. $7 |
We got one dessert to share - this item isn't on the on-line menu, so I can't be entirely sure if my caption is exactly accurate - but it was a disc of sweet mousse, studded with tiny pieces of fresh truffle. On top of that was a quenelle of vanilla sago, some crunchy macadamias and a cruncy triangular tuille. I'm not entirely convinced it worked as a dessert though, as I found the truffle taste in the dessert very overpowering.
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| White chocolate and truffle marquise - vanilla sago, caramelized macadamias, strawberry paint, fresh truffle. $18 |
Around the back of the marquise was a thin shaving of fresh black truffle. Fascinating, as I'd never actually seen fresh black truffle before. I picked it up and couldn't stop smelling it - there were so many aromas in there - garlic, leather, mushroom and a zillion more I couldn't identify.
Even though we didn't order any coffee or tea, we got some complimentary petits fours - yay! The round truffles were chocolate-mints, and the biscuits were mini-shortbreads drizzled with chocolate. Just quietly, I liked these better than the truffle-infused dessert.
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| Complimentary petits fours |
On our final morning in Launceston, we returned for breakfast. Stillwater have a good breakfast menu with a very strong focus on local produce - savoury french toast, vanilla poached fruits, muesli and a range of hot breakfasts.
Coffee was blindingly hot, but once it had cooled down to a drinkable temperature it was rich and satisfying.
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| One tea, one latte |
Sandra had a decadent breakfast of pancakes with apple and cinnamon syrup and lemon mascarpone. I had one mouthful - delicious! - but it was extremely rich, and she only managed to eat one of the pancakes.
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| Pancakes, apple & cinnamon syrup and lemon mascarpone. $15 |
I was a little more restrained, and had a very simple breakfast of toast, butter and jam. I must admit that the main reason I ordered this was because I wanted to try Ashgrove butter! We'd visited the Ashgrove cheese factory the day before, and I desperately wanted to try their creams, milks and butters, but they didn't do samples of them, and I couldn't really buy any of those things to bring home.
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| Toast & jam toasted ciabatta, Ashgrove butter & house made jam. $7 |
The butter was very pale, almost like a whipped butter. Combined with the crusty ciabatta and chunky house-made berry jam, it was a fabulous little breakfast!
To help me discover Tasmania, Tourism Tasmania generously provided return flights and car hire for the trip. However, I selected all accommodation, tourist destinations and restaurants personally and visited as a paying customer.
)
Gel Food Coloring
from Amazon and if you are using Swagbucks, it's a great way to try it for free. Sweet Baking Supply also sells it and has it in a huge variety of colors! (I used the one called "Rainbow.")
