Simone Watts is the chef and farmer of Barragunda Dining in Cape Schanck, awarded 2 hats in the Good Food Guide
After more than a decade in city kitchens, including as head chef at Coda, Simone Watts moved closer to the farms and food systems behind the ingredients she was cooking.
That decision now shapes her work at Barragunda Dining. Simone is responsible for more than the menu. Her role reaches into crop planning, preservation and the daily relationship between the farm and the kitchen.
At Barragunda, the cooking starts well before produce reaches the pass.
A different route through the industry
Simone began her career under Greg Malouf at MoMo and Adam D’Sylva at Pearl before working in Canada and Asia. She later returned to Melbourne and became head chef at Coda.
In 2016, she left the city and travelled to a mango farm on a volcanic island in Sumatra. She then worked at Transition Farm on the Mornington Peninsula, where regenerative farming and crop diversity became a greater part of how she thought about food.
Further work across farms and hospitality projects led to a role as executive chef at Daintree Ecolodge in Far North Queensland. The experience brought native ingredients, local sourcing and the relationship between kitchen and landscape into sharper focus.
Simone returned to the Mornington Peninsula in 2020 to begin developing Barragunda.
Building the kitchen around the farm
Barragunda Dining was several years in development before opening on the 1,000-acre Barragunda Estate at Cape Schanck.
Simone worked with the wider farm team across the garden program, restaurant kitchen and systems connecting the property to the 40-seat dining room.
That involvement gave the kitchen a different starting point. Crops could be discussed with the menu in mind.
Periods of surplus could be directed into fermentation and preservation. Equipment and workspaces could be planned around what the estate was likely to produce.
By the time the restaurant opened, Simone had already spent years learning how the farm moved through the seasons.
Cooking from what comes through the door
The menu changes with what arrives from the market garden, orchards and paddocks, sometimes on a daily basis.
Vegetables and fruit grown on the estate are joined by Barragunda’s hogget and Black Angus beef, along with seafood sourced from the Mornington Peninsula. The kitchen works with what is ready rather than asking the farm to meet a fixed menu.
Simone’s day can begin with milling flour, baking bread and lighting the wood fire. The fire carries vegetables, seafood and meat through the menu, while pickling and fermentation extend ingredients beyond their immediate season.
The approach requires the brigade to respond quickly. A strong crop may arrive all at once. Another may finish earlier than expected. Prep and menu development have to follow the farm rather than a predetermined schedule.
Making more of what is available
Waste is considered during menu development, not only after service.
Spent laying hens have been used in a dish with yolk, chicken skin and mushrooms. Prime and secondary cuts of beef appear across the menu, while surplus vegetables move into the restaurant’s wall of pickling and fermentation jars.
Even the final course can carry that thinking. One dessert has used egg whites for a meringue surrounding sourdough ice cream, turning kitchen leftovers into a finished dish rather than a sustainability statement added afterwards.
The food still has to work on flavour. The sourcing and waste story does not replace the need for sound cooking.
What farming changes
Working directly with growers changes how a chef reads seasonality.
The conversation begins with what should be planted, how much the kitchen can use and what will happen when a crop reaches its peak. There are gluts, shortages and ingredients that may be available for only a short window.
That requires more than flexible garnishes or occasional specials. The menu, preparation and preservation work all need to move together.
Barragunda’s farm is not scenery around the restaurant. It affects how the kitchen plans, cooks and uses what it has.
What two hats mean here
Barragunda Dining’s 2 hats in the Good Food Guide 2026 recognise a restaurant built through a much longer process than its opening date suggests.
They follow Simone’s move from city kitchens into farming, her work across the estate and the years spent developing a restaurant around what the land can support.
At Barragunda, farming and cooking are not separate parts of the business. The menu begins with what the estate can produce and what the kitchen can use well.
