A gourmet guide to dining in the Hunter Valley

Yellow Billy is one of the hottest venues in town – literally. Co-owned and run by chef Sam Alexander and Sommelier Pat Hester, Yellow Billy celebrates the art of cooking over fire. The restaurant is so named in homage to the local legend of Yellow Billy, AKA William White, a Gentleman bushranger who roamed the Hunter Valley areas of Broke and Pokolbin during the 1860s. According to legend he was an early forager who lived off the land and slept in caves under the Brokenback Ranges, cooking on fire to survive.

Working over a brilliant custom-made fire pit, Sam and his team serve up a mouth-watering sharing menu that can be adapted to suit your needs. Sourced from quality local producers, the meals are the riot flavours, from smoky BBQ Eggplant to juicy Pukara Estate forequarter chop, succulent Red Gate Farm spatchcock and morish potato rosti. Out on the restaurant floor, Pat has put together an enticing list of wines, from near and far, that have been selected for their affinity with that unmistakable heat and char of an open grill.

‘Estate grown; estate made’. That’s the ethos at multi-award-winning Margan Restaurant: champions of regional eating and the pioneers of Argi-Dining in the Hunter Valley. This desire to connect back to the earth and fully appreciate a meal's ingredients is a firm focus at Margan, whose team craft their menus around the harvest of their one-hectare kitchen garden and orchard to maintain a hyper-local, seasonal focus. Not to mention the free range chickens, lambs and beehives that all cultivated on the estate.

Margan Restaurant boasts a range of exciting fine dining experiences, however, for the complete farm to fork dining experience we recommend The Ultimate Margan Experience. Guests whet their appetite with a guided tour of the estate’s abundant kitchen garden, orchard, vineyard and winery before digging in to a sumptuous five-course degustation lunch. Food arrives in waves of exquisite flavour and texture: buttermilk curds, spinach cannelloni and Wagyu beef with kohlrabi and delicate white chocolate pavlova. Of course, delicious food calls for great wine, which Margan has in spades. Select from their own vinous offerings or peruse the list for some other regional favourites as well as Australian and international heroes.

Established in 2003, the Binnorie Dairy is a one-stop shop to satisfy all your dairy-based desires. Celebrated for their soft cheeses, you’ll find plenty to tempt you here: there’s their flagship, award-winning marinated feta, their swoon-worthy triple cream brie and a labna so soft it's like eating a cloud. And if you’re more of a goat’s cheese fan? Fear not, there’s a veritable raft of chèvres just waiting to be sampled.

All these dairy delights are made on site at Binnorie’s state-of-the-art cheesemaking centre. Stop in at the factory for a birds eye view of the cheese making in action before making your way to the store and café to sample the goods. If heaven were a place on earth, it might look like the Binnorie cheese shop: it’s a veritable treasure trove of gourmet delights, cured meats, condiments and accompaniments, perfect to pair with a good ripe brie or a soft spread of goat. It’s the perfect place to stock up for a future picnic or settle in at the cafe to enjoy a cracking cheese board with a glass of local vino and a breathtaking view.