Restaurant review: Heywood, at Nick O'Leary's, bats above its average

Now I'm not sure if award-winning winemaker Nick O'Leary is a baseball fan, he has the stature of a handy second-baseman, but perhaps he too heard murmurings roll over the gentle hills out Wallaroo way. Build it, and they will come.

O'Leary has been producing delectable riesling and shiraz in the Canberra District for close to 17 years but, like many of Canberra's best winemakers - we're looking at you Bryan Martin - he's never had his own cellar door.

All that changed in June 2023, when he opened Heywood, part cellar door, part restaurant.

"We really wanted to create a home for Nick O'Leary Wines, a home that we can share with our customers," O'Leary said, when we spoke to him back then.

"We wanted people to be able to come and see where we grow and make the wine and to be able to share what we think is a pretty special place."

And what a special place it is. If you can find it. It's not well marked off the Barton Highway. Some obvious signage would be a smart move. But once you find your way off Brooklands Road, make a turn and see the somewhat industrial venue appear before you, you're just a little excited.

From the car park you can see vineyards on the adjacent slopes, the Brindabellas seem so close you could reach out and touch them. There's no doubt you're in farming country, in wine country, with Brindabella Hills Winery, Wallaroo Wines and Pankhurst Wines not too far away, and sheep in paddocks along the way.

But despite all this ruralness, there's something quite sophisticated about Heywood. The design was a collaboration between Studio and You and Captivate Designs and built by Loader Contractors. It features dark accents, recycled timber feature walls, warm leather banquette seating, a feature fireplace and enormous cork and brass-trimmed bar. There's something rather French bistro about it, with plenty of glass and attentive well-informed staff who are happy to talk about food and wine.

The menu consists of mainly small plates to share, there's a little "raw" section, a selection of charcuterie options and a couple of desserts. There's only one "larger" plate on offer today, a six-week dry-aged bone-in beef striploin for $90, which we're assuming would be large enough to share with the whole table. If there's one downfall of the menu, another large plate or two might be nice, half a chicken perhaps, which would go well with sides on offer, like the fries with herb salt and winter leaves.

But we're happy to pick a few little plates. We start with some Pambula oysters ($6 each) with a mignonette made from the 15-year-old muscatel. It's a sweet kick on the plump oysters and a great introduction to how the wines here are incorporated into many of the dishes.

Next up in the steak tartare ($26), served with a moutard de pommery and some delicate homemade potato crisps. Unfortunately, the yolk was nowhere to be seen. And my dining colleague and I argued over the right texture of a tartare, she thought it should have been more finely minced but I liked the chunkier, melt-in-your-mouth pieces of steak. I could have eaten more of this.

The spiced lamb merguez cigars in a fried brik pastry ($14 each) were one of the few meat dishes on the menu. The pastry was perhaps a little too crisp, it had lost a lot of that flakiness a good brik has, but the sausage inside was tasty and well-flavoured.

Next were the braised globe artichokes ($15) with a pangrattato, lemon and goat's cheese. These were an interesting bite, cylindrical sections of layered artichoke with a golden crumb and a dollop of tangy goat's cheese.

The highlight was the Vanella Dairy burrata ($26), served on a bread of charred fennel and some sprigs of dill, with a little pickled fennel for some extra kick. The burrata was creamy, the charring of the fennel giving it a real depth of flavour.

I probably didn't need dessert, but I hadn't finished my glass of rosé. The Tumbarumba poached pears ($18) with pinot jelly, a choc walnut crumb and Tilba milk parfait was a great finish.

As you'd expect, the drinks list contains a lot of his own wines including some hard-to-find back vintages, many of them available by the glass and bottle. You can even get a magnum of the 2018 Bolaro shiraz for $165. Perhaps that would go well with that steak.

We're here for a late Friday lunchtime slot, you'll be lucky if you can find a weekend booking between now and Christmas. Apparently there are plans to stay open until 7pm once daylight savings kicks in and we love that idea. A bit of live music, another plate of that burrata, and it has all the makings of a very pleasant evening, with room for the kids to run about out on the grass, leaving the adults to do adulty things.

It might be a good 30-odd minutes from the city centre but it seems so much further than that. As the sun dips low over the Brindabellas, you'll be tempted to order one last bottle, all your troubles left far behind. That's not a bad way to enjoy a meal.

Address: 149 Brooklands Road, Wallaroo, NSW

Phone: 0480 510 595

Website: nickolearywines.com.au

Hours: Thursday to Sunday for lunch from noon, with tastings from 10am-7pm over summer

Chef: Matt Fely

Noise: No problem

Dietary: Plenty of options

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