When friends are down I always take them to Hamlet for brunch, which is a social enterprise cafe with great produce, a delicious, culturally diverse and wide ranging breakfast and lunch menu where you could get anything from a crepe sarrasin with house smoked ham to a rice bowl with fragrant herbs, fresh fish and fermented chilli.

Ah, coffee! As a lactose intolerant girl I’ve become a filter coffee drinker as I enjoy the myriad of flavours that can be brought out in the bean and it’s gentler on my stomach. My favourite coffee spots in Tassie are: Somewhere Coffee, Vilicia Coffee, and Capulus Espresso, all of which are in Hobart. Shake a Leg Jr in Moonah, Dinki in Ross and Princes Square in Launceston, are also great. It can be tough to find good coffee in super rural areas so I always travel with freshly ground beans and a V60.

My favourite food market is Farm Gate Market, which is held in Hobart on a Sunday on Bathurst St. To have a stall in the market you need to be selling something you have made or grown yourself, which keeps it down to earth, I think. A Sunday morning generally involves hitting up Farm Gate for a congee from Rough Rice or a hopper from the Sri Lankan street food stall, ice cream from Canopy Ice Cream, picking up fresh vegetables, cheeses and seedlings then a coffee from Somewhere Coffee who are close to the market. Then I head home to slowly cook with the produce and have wine by the fire.

A lot of my favourite Tasmanian food experiences involve gathering fresh produce from farm stands and shops then eating it on the beach or out in nature somewhere. I love to grab oysters from the drive thru window on Bruny Island, then take them to the beach and shuck them while looking at the ocean. Or getting freshly cooked crayfish from a takeaway and making DIY sandwiches with some white bread, butte and lemon. It goes without saying, seafood and a stunning view always taste better with local bubbles. Mumm Tasmania is always in hand on adventures like these.

For a special occasion I most often find myself at The Agrarian Kitchen Eatery for lunch (they only do lunches) and Fico for dinner. Both restaurants offer set menus and where the Agrarian is very farm-to-table based with their beautiful country cuisine, Fico is more luxe Italian.

For a drink I love Lucinda Wine Bar for the dirty martinis, wide ranging and constantly changing list of minimal intervention wines and French inspired snacks, especially the whipped anchovy. I’ve also been propping up the bar at newcomer Ogee recently, which is a gloriously welcoming space to sit in, eat pasta and have a beverage. Otherwise I like to light a fire, settle into my couch, open or make something nice and watch the light change over the Huon Valley from my windows. I like to toast the week with a glass of Mumm Tasmania bubbles, a great option if I’m after more everyday indulgence.

I have a real soft spot for the wines from Rory D’meure, not only because I helped him pick grapes once during covid, but the wines are among some of the most interesting and delicious I’ve seen come out of Tassie. In terms of a cellar door experience the new one at Mewstone is stunningly beautiful and looks out over the D’entrecasteaux Channel. Tassie is definitely a hidden gem when it comes to wine regions in Australia, we make some of the world’s best sparkling wines too – I know I’ve mentioned it now a few times, but proof is in the pudding with Mumm Tasmania. The fact that a globally renowned champagne house selected Tassie soil for their first Aussie sparkling is testament to the quality of wines that are made here.