Photo and story Simon Haslam
The rich red loamy soil of the Cudgen Plateau is perfect for supporting huge hospitals and carparks, but did you know that it’s also superb for growing food – or that the Tweed region shared ‘best produce region’ with the Gold Coast Hinterland in the 2021 delicious awards? And with great produce, and some fancy chef-work, comes great dining.
Last weekend I visited Farm & Co on Cudgen Rd for a long lunch, looking out over their actual farm’s red soil, just a few hundred metres from Earth Beer’s brewery and well out of sight of urban sprawl, as part of the Tweed Artisan Collective’s Artisan Food Festival. More should be made of this regional drawcard, as restaurants like Paper Daisy (chef Jason Barratt), Potager, Mavis’s Kitchen, or Tweed River House, along with distilleries like Husk, are real drawcards – and isn’t this the sort of sustainable, low-key, unique and artisanal tourism experience that’s second only to jet-ski competitions in desirability?
Farm & Co, a bit like The Farm in Byron Bay, combines walking around a real working farm (great for kids) with a great restaurant, an innovative range of cocktails, a long wine list and great service. It has only been open seven weeks, but is already very popular and seems to have hit the ground running.
But this is just one of the restaurants in the Tweed, many of which are featured in the festival, which is on right now. The full list of upcoming special events in the Tweed Artisan Food Festival is online, and includes events combining painting (with wine and grazing plates), Jason Barratt’s Paper Daisy Indigenous lunch (or his cooking masterclass teaching you how to make your own Paper Daisy dish), a coffee carnival, bush poetry at Husk Distillery or a Native Spring Feast at Mavis’s Kitchen. Check out all the details, and book, online at:
tweedartisancollective.com.au/the-tweed-artisan-food-festival/.
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