Join us for a great dining experience in 2011

Happy New Year!

Didn't that come around quickly?

For Lochiel, 2010 was a year of exciting changes - first with Monique and Tony getting married in Bali in May and then with the winning a second chef's hat and the Best Regional Restaurant award from the Sydney Morning Herald. The latter brought us many new customers and vindicated what many regular customers say they already knew! With this new recognition we have been encouraged to look at different ways of running our restaurant and have realised that hard work really does pay off. In 2010 we also finally got a wine cellar built and Monique and Tony spent a lot of time looking at solutions to make the restaurant more environmentally friendly, which included the expansion of our herb and vege gardens which are loving all this rain!

During our three week break over Christmas we all had a chance to relax and reflect on the year that was and to spend time with our second families (those we are linked to by blood!) Monique and Tony also managed to find some time to spend a week in Victoria on what they describe as a "food and wine trip". They enjoyed meals at restaurants such as Vue de Monde, the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld, MoVida and Loam (which won Best Regional Restaurant in Victoria's equivalent of the Good Food Guide), as well as some lesser known establishments. They also visited some great wineries and met the winemakers. And the best part is that they took plenty of photos which we will be sharing with you in an upcoming blog entry - so stay tuned for that!

As always with this blog, we hope to keep you checking back to see new photos, recipes and updates on special menus and general exciting news because I have a feeling there will be plenty of it this year!

In the meantime, we have lots of preparation to do for the year ahead and hope you will all join us for some great dining experiences - and don't forget to come and say hello to Tony in the kitchen!