VOYAGER ESTATE RESTAURANT

Voyager Estate's restaurant is housed in a classically elegant, Cape Dutch inspired setting (or so I'm told). To me it has a slight European feel to it, with high wooden ceilings, ornate chandeliers and beautifully decorative wooden seats. There's good natural light to the dining room, but I would've preferred to of seem some larger windows, bringing the outside inside more. I do appreciate winery restaurants which let you know where you are. You can sit in a beautiful room in any inner city restaurant, but you can only sit in a beautiful room surrounded by vineyards, gardens, trees and natural beauty in a winery restaurant in a regional location.

Service at Voyager was superlative from word go. We were served by a variety of young women on the day, all of whom did a very professional, excellent job. Without being overly interfering, they left us alone to enjoy our meals. Their seating arrangements were well thought out too. There were only about 4 or 5 groups dining on this particular day and the waitresses intelligently spread them out across the dining room, which gave everyone the under rated benefit of privacy. It can be quite annoying going for a quiet meal for two and being the only ones in the restaurant, when all of a sudden there is a group of 12 seated right next to you. Voyager steered well clear of this.

Pricing wasn't what you'd call cheap, as entrees started at $14 but mains started at $34, while sides were $9. We were to find out it was all good value though. We ordered creamed potato with black truffle butter as a side. It was magnificent. Its texture was superlative, wonderfully creamy and perfectly consistent, without any inconsistent lumps or hard bits. There was a smattering of truffle flavour gently woven throughout, making for an excellent side to our meals.

The wine list was unsurprisingly Voyager Estate. Except for the flagship Tom Price wines, all wines were available by the glass, with the 2004 Cabernet Merlot being the most expensive at a very modest $15 a glass. There were even wine flights available for people wishing to push that way; one consisting of Voyager's white wines and one reds. I think they were around $15-$20 each.

We began with glasses of the semillon and sauvignon blanc semillon, before moving onto glasses of the chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon merlot.

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