Need to know

Rooms

20.

Rates

AU$180–AU$250, including morning newspaper and Continental breakfast. A la carte cooked breakfast also available.

Check-out

10am. Check-in, 2pm. Both flexible subject to availability; a further charge may apply.

Facilities

Gardens, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: flatscreen TV, air conditioning.

Poolside

There is a small outdoor heated pool. Get there early or take a towel to lie on as loungers are in high demand.

Children

Welcomel; but you've come for the food, so book a local nanny for dinnertime. The kids might get fidgety during the four-hour tasting menu.

Eco-friendly

With over 150 varieties of heirloom vegetables and herbs sourced from the extensive kitchen gardens nearby, this is hyper-local, organic cuisine. Regeneration and a native species breeding programme also take place at sister Mount Sturgeon Estate.

Also

Maps for eight marked walking trails are provided in all rooms. Walk off lunch with a stroll to Arboretum or the Chinese Wall – you can take a Hiker's Hamper in case you get gourmet withdrawal. Or relax with an in-room massage.

In the know

Our favourite rooms

Don't settle for anything except the aptly-named Mountain View Rooms, where full-width, floor-to-ceiling, sliding door windows frame picture-postcard-perfect aspects of Mount Sturgeon and the Southern Grampian Ranges. Interiors are clean and contemporary and fairly no-frills, but you're there for the food and the views, and it's pretty special drinking premium wine on a private sun-drenched veranda anyway, so who's complaining? Ask for the room furthest from the restaurant and bar area and thereby a little more private.

Packing tips

Wide-brimmed Akubra for hiking in the hills; low-necked little black dress for seducing over dinner.

Also

Only three kilometres away from Dunkeld, the Mount Sturgeon Homestead presides over a 1,000 bale-a-year superfine merino wool working sheep station, and can cater for up to 12 Smiths and their friends in a graceful and expansive historic home. So why not arrive by helicopter, play lord and lady of the manor for the weekend, and enjoy complimentary transfers to the restaurant each night for dinner?

Food & drink

Hotel restaurant

Yes, well, it's pretty good. And we're not the only ones who think so. Winner of The Age Good Food Guide 2009 'Country Restaurant of the Year', as well as the Australian Gourmet Traveller '2009 Regional Restaurant of the Year', this is, quite simply, one of Australia's best restaurants. And with ambitions to play on the international stage, it's on track to be one of the world's best too. Headed up by Dan Hunter, most recently Head Chef at two-Michelin-starred Mugaritz restaurant in the Basque city of San Sebastian, it fuses extraordinarily fresh, local and seasonal ingredients with low-key, but essence-enhancing technology to create a genteel riot of tastes, textures and tummy-tickling flavours. This is molecular gastronomy with a distinctly Australian accent, mixing lamb and licorice, pigeon and white chocolate, fig leaf soup and fresh and dried berries. The Royal Mail Cellar, home to Australia's leading collection of Burgundy and Bourdeaux, has also garnered various gongs, located across the road in a huge, temperature-controlled shed. A gourmet Bistro sits alongside the more formal dining area and serves refined Spanish-inspired dishes, including tapas. Don't expect decor as exquisite as the food – the Royal Mail Hotel goes with, rather than against, its country pub roots – but a bright, smart dining area is complemented by a sunny outside courtyard and a comfy sofa area in front of a huge open fire.

Dress code

Country checks and local merino woolens.

Top table

A corner table is probably the most discrete; or sit closer to the fire and more in the thick of things.

Last orders

Lunch in the Bistro at 3pm; dinner in both the Bistro and Restaurant at 9pm; drinks in the Public Bar at 1am.

Room service

A short in-room dining menu, including Wagyu Burger, is available 7 days a week between 6pm and 9pm.

Hotel bar

The Royal Mail Hotel Public Bar is more pub than bar, but it's the real thing. Foodies from all over Australia rub shoulders with the locals and there's the occasional live band.

Smith card offer A complimentary copy of photographic journal A Dunkeld Portfolio by Richard Crawley

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Book this hotel

To book this hotel please click here, or contact our travel team on 1 866 610 3867.

Royal Mail Hotel

98 Parker Street (Glenelg Highway), Dunkeld, Victoria