Hobart Winter Restaurants: Eight New Rooms to Know

At Sandy Bay, staff in bright blue bowling shirts set down South-East Asian-style share plates beside cobalt chopsticks; at Lauderdale, the Brine kitchen crew folds sea salt into focaccia made fresh each day and keeps pickles, tinctures and jams in the larder. Eight teams across Hobart and nearby Tasmanian towns have opened eating and drinking rooms ahead of winter and the 12-day Dark Mofo festival from June 11.¹ Read by the work on the pass, the season moves from share plates to a garden dining room, whisky-bar jazz, waterfront oysters, pizza slices, corner snacks and producer platters inside a restored timber hops kiln.

Sandy Bay and Lauderdale: Evening Plates and Coastal Preservation

The Bear With Me Team Opens In Good Company (Sandy Bay)

The team behind South Hobart cafe Bear With Me has taken the former Jet service station at 479 Sandy Bay Road and worked it into a Sandy Bay room that can hold evening as well as morning. In Good Company sits just down from the corn cob-shaped Wrest Point Casino, and the cafe crew's hand is still visible: quick movement on the floor, practical comfort, colour set with intent.

The crew sends South-East Asian-style share plates through the menu. Staff put crisp school prawns down first if the table wants crunch; the kitchen cuts kingfish sashimi with nahm jim dressing; cooks carry duck and lychees into red curry for the colder part of the night. Cocktails stay below $23, a number that matters when one winter drink becomes two. Come for the later service rather than cafe memory: the pass, the heat under the outside concrete bench seat and the share plates carry the room.

Details:

• Address: 479 Sandy Bay Road, Sandy Bay

The Brine Kitchen Crew Preserves the Coast (Lauderdale)

The Brine kitchen crew starts with salt as method. At the Lauderdale coastal venue, the team works it straight into the meal: sea salt focaccia made fresh each day, kingfish ceviche with confit tomatoes, and a larder of pickles, tinctures and jams made on site to reduce waste and hold seasonal produce a little longer.

The restaurant sits closer to the airport than Hobart city, so the visit asks for the coast, the road and the appetite that follows cold air. The kitchen centres ocean-facing dishes and hyper-locally sourced produce, with preservation running through the menu. Start with the focaccia, then let the ceviche show how the crew sets salt, acid and preserved sweetness on one plate.

Details:

• Address: 1/10A Bangalee Street, Lauderdale

Hobart Garden, Corner Shop and Whisky Bar Rooms

Bird in Hand Plants a Garden Dining Room (Hobart)

A cook touches wood-fired pork belly with a torch at Bird in Hand, the last small gesture before fat meets flame. The South Australian family-owned winery has reimagined the restaurant, event space and kiosk at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, giving its Hobart service a light atrium-like dining room and a wide deck for the hours when winter sun holds.

Bird in Hand expanded into Tasmania on the east coast in 2020 and in the Tamar Valley in 2024.² This garden site gives the family winery a city-facing station for food, wine and events. Daylight matters here. So does the way the Bird in Hand team places wine beside bread, fat and a table that does not need to hurry. Choose the thick-cut sourdough with chicken liver parfait, pork belly with its final mark of heat and sparkling wine service when lunch has time.

Details:

• Address: Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Hobart

Two Mates Open Smith Street (North Hobart)

Two mates work from the old shape of neighbourhood appetite at Smith Street: a corner shopfront, a few blocks south of Trophy Room in North Hobart, turned toward snacks, cocktails and heat. The pair keeps the table moving through small plates rather than one long arc.

They send out curls of puffy crackle to do the first job a bar snack should do. Salty fried pinkeye potatoes follow with weight; the kitchen crisps up onigiri for rice and edge; fire-licked skewers of hanger steak arrive with homegrown wasabi. The cocktail menu takes a similarly Asian-inspired line, so drinks and food work in the same register. Walk-ins only rewards timing and patience during a busy winter week; come for the sequence of drink, crackle, rice, skewer and another drink.

Details:

• Address: 325 Argyle Street, North Hobart

Lark Distillery Relaunches Gotham at The Still (Hobart)

Custom Pitt & Giblin speakers, made locally to echo the colours and textures of whisky barrels, set the room's first note at Gotham at The Still. Lark Distillery, an Australian whisky pioneer, has relaunched its flagship bar with a darker Gotham concept and a room the team has tuned as carefully as the glass.

The Lark team's program is not only whisky. New dishes include wagyu tartare and white anchovy gildas punctuated by goat's curd-stuffed olives. The distillery crew brings martinis and oysters to happy hour, while live jazz marks Wednesday nights. Tartare, anchovy, olive, curd and oyster give the drinker salt and fat to work against the spirits, making this the cellar-minded Hobart stop when the night asks for whisky, food and sound in the same room.

Details:

• Address: 30 Argyle Street, Hobart

Battery Point Pizza and East Coast Oysters

Don Frico Operators Open a Battery Point Pizzeria

The Don Frico team begins service at 3pm, the hour when a winter city can use a slice. The Battery Point pizzeria operators, just behind Salamanca, turn out thin, wide wedges of New York-style pizza beneath a glittering disco ball, with speakers over the bar and DJs playing vinyl into the late hours.

The operators anchor the room with pizza. A pepperoni slice states the team's premise clearly; the kitchen adds heat and softness with spicy sausage and whipped ricotta. Cocktails have their own place, from dirty martinis stuffed with olives to passionfruit margaritas made with jalapeno-infused tequila. This is the late table for hot cheese, a drink, vinyl and no long preamble when a full dinner feels too fixed.

Details:

• Address: 22 Montpelier Retreat, Battery Point

Le Gulch Owners Open a Waterfront Bicheno Venue

The Le Gulch owners keep the venue's former life close. The Bicheno waterfront drinks-and-nibbles venue was once a seafood processor, and now the team puts guests back by the water with local oysters, cheese boards and wine from Apsley Gorge Vineyard.

Bicheno sits a two-hour-and-twenty-minute drive up the east coast, making Le Gulch a planned stop rather than a casual detour. The owners join the teams at Le Coq and Governors in serving the beach town's culinary-minded eaters by the ocean, near the gulch, with Governor Island in view. Order Melshell oysters, add a cheese board and a glass of Apsley Gorge Vineyard wine, then use nearby Waubs Harbour Distillery and Bicheno's Lobster Shack to make a compact coastal eating and drinking route along the water.

Details:

• Address: 54 Waubs Esplanade, Bicheno

Ranelagh Producer Platters and What to Book Next

The Kiln Collective Team Gathers Tasmanian Producers (Ranelagh)

The Kiln Collective team asks you to notice the building before the platter. In Ranelagh, a 35-minute drive from Hobart in the Huon Valley, the crew occupies a restored timber hops kiln, a hexagonal structure whose round room turns afternoon eating into a slower visit.

The collective gathers Tasmanian producers under one roof, especially the team at Bruny Island Cheese & Beer Co., vinegar professional Wild Mother and winemakers Haddow & Dineen. The table extends into buttered cheese toasties, scones, pickles, salts, spirits and chocolates. Producer names matter because the platter is a map of hands: cheesemakers, vinegar makers, winemakers, preserving work, baking work, salt work. If the sunshine holds, take the surrounding garden and established trees, then return to the old timber, storage and heat memory of the kiln.

Details:

• Address: 2 Louisa Street, Ranelagh

What's Next for These Hobart Winter Teams

The winter pattern is not one lane. At Sandy Bay, the Bear With Me team extends its hands into evening share plates; at Lauderdale, a coastal kitchen crew preserves what the season gives it; the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens now carry the Bird in Hand winery family's dining room; Hobart has the Lark Distillery crew, slice house operators and snack bar mates; Bicheno and Ranelagh pull the route outward toward oyster servers, vineyards, timber and producer collectives. For a visitor with only a few cold nights, the useful question is which maker, bar team or producer table matches the hour available.

The next name to watch is Analiese Gregory, the former Franklin chef whose new anti-restaurant, Lumachelle, has drawn anticipation from Tasmanian food fans. Until Gregory's launch takes its place in the season, take daylight for the Bird in Hand team, save late sound for the Lark or Don Frico crews, leave the city for the Brine, Le Gulch or Kiln Collective teams, and let winter decide how long the table holds.