Royal Mail Hotel
Style Gourmet-stamped pub
Setting Southern Grampians panorama
For one of the finest meals you'll eat in Australia, with simple yet sophisticated rooms and majestic mountain views to match, head for the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld, the southern gateway to the Grampians in Victoria.
Need to know
- Rooms 27.
- Rates Double rooms from $173.87 (AU$163), excluding tax at 10 per cent.
- More details Rates include newspaper and continental breakfast (à la carte cooked breakfast also available at additional cost).
- Facilities Gardens, outdoor pool. In rooms: flatscreen TV, balcony.
- Poolside There is a small outdoor pool. Get there early or take a towel to lie on as loungers are in high demand.
- Check-out Check-out 10am. Check-in, 2pm. Both flexible subject to availability; a further charge may apply.
- Children Welcome; but book a local nanny for dinnertime. The kids might get fidgety during the four-hour tasting menu. More...
- Eco-friendly With over 150 varieties of heirloom vegetables and herbs sourced from the hotel’s own extensive kitchen gardens, cuisine here is hyper-local and organic.
- 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.
Food and drink at Royal Mail Hotel
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Hotel restaurant
Winner of a fistful of foodie awards, this is, quite simply, one of Australia’s best restaurants, so be sure to bag a table when you book your room. Headed up by Dan Hunter (former head chef at two-Michelin-starred Mugaritz in San Sebastian), it fuses fresh, local and seasonal ingredients with essence-enhancing technology to create tummy-tickling flavours, with a 10-course omnivore or vegetarian tasting menu up for grabs. This is molecular gastronomy with an Australian accent, mixing lamb and liquorice, or pigeon and white chocolate. The Royal Mail Cellar, the country’s leading collection of Burgundy and Bordeaux wines, has also garnered gongs. A more casual bistro alongside the formal dining area serves refined Spanish-inspired dishes, including tapas, and there’s a sunny outside courtyard.
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Dress code
Wide-brimmed Akubra hat for hiking in the hills; low-necked little black dress for seducing over dinner. -
Top table
Bag a discreet corner table; or sit closer to the fire in the thick of things. -
Last orders
Lunch in the Bistro at 2.30pm; dinner in both the Bistro and Restaurant at 9pm; drinks in the Public Bar at 1am. -
Room service
A short in-room menu, including wagyu burgers, is available daily between 6pm and 9pm. -
Hotel bar
The Royal Mail Hotel Public Bar is more pub than cocktail lounge, but it’s the real thing. Foodies from all over Australia rub shoulders with locals and there’s the occasional live band.
Also worth knowing
- Weddings This property is suitable for weddings. More...
Royal Mail Hotel 98 Parker Street (Glenelg Highway), The Grampians, 3294
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Smith extra at Royal Mail Hotel
A complimentary cooked breakfast and late check-out at 12pm
Current offers at Royal Mail Hotel
- Stay, Eat and save 20 per cent - Valid from 9 January 2012 to 30 Marc...
In the know
Our favourite rooms
Don’t settle for anything less than the aptly named Mountain View Rooms, where full-width, floor-to-ceiling, glass sliding doors frame postcard-perfect aspects of Mount Sturgeon and the Southern Grampian Ranges. Interiors are clean-lined, contemporary and fairly no-frills, but it’s pretty special drinking premium wine on a private sun-drenched veranda, so who’s complaining? Ask for the more private room furthest from the restaurant and bar.
Packing tips
Hiking kit for midday ambles, a wine guide for getting the low down on the local shiraz and loose-fitting garb for that multi-course meal.
Also
Only three kilometres 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 free transfers to the restaurant each night for dinner?
From the Guestbook…
Magnificent degustation meal at the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld but four hours and ten minutes long – particularly when the restaurant was not full (I counted 24 guests). So,...
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