The region is a hot spot for visitors, especially foodies, helped by booking.com voting Mudgee as Australia’s number one food destination back in July. Since then, the region has not dropped the ball (or hot cake).

Flavours of Mudgee, a feature of the Wine and Food Festival, attracted the largest crowd in its six-year history with 10,500 feasting on local produce in the CBD last Saturday evening.

As part of the Festival, which wraps up this weekend, travel writer John Rozentals was invited to soak up the wine, food and atmosphere and tell everyone in Australia about his experience.

And he did not disappoint, describing the region as ‘a picture of sophistication’.

“It is still very much a friendly, quiet country town at heart — with wide streets, history aplenty,” he wrote for Fairfax Media.

John was clearly impressed with the growth of the region and our ability to offer visitors a truly unique experience, marvelling at the embrace of share plates.

“Most meals we had required food to be shared with your neighbours at the table. There’s nothing quite like metaphorically breaking bread together to encourage meaningful and genuine conversation,” he wrote.

“No big-city airs and graces here. Nothing at all tarted up. Just good honest, very tasty country fare.”

One of the champions of the ‘share plate’ is The Cellar By Gilbert – a relatively new player in the region, having taken over the High Valley Cheese tasting room at the end of 2016.

Since then the experienced winemakers have teamed up with chef Pip Sumbak (series five Masterchef contestant) to create a unique experience – Food over Fire.

The first step was the creation of the fire pit and barrel smoker, expertly designed by Pip who was determined to keep the concept fresh and local.

“I love cooking over fire, and these lunches are just the perfect way for people to share local produce sourced from Mudgee to Orange – 150km from where the visitors sit,” she explained of the weekly Saturday lunch.

Pip is new to the region, but already has a clear view of why Mudgee has been named the top food destination, “the offerings are really diverse already, and being able to source amazing local produce is definitely one of the reasons.”

Within the first 12 months of opening the tasting room doors, The Cellar By Gilbert is going from strength to strength, extending the trading hours on Friday and Saturday evenings to include a food and wine bar for locals and visitors. 

The Ulan Road cellar door will stay open until 10pm from this weekend.