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Just off the main road of Heathcote, the state’s gilded home of top shiraz, there’s a small yet stately Georgian sandstone structure that looks like something out of a Jane Austen novel. In 1835, it was the office of early town surveyor Phillip Chauncy. Today, it’s home to one of Victoria’s most inviting countryside restaurants.
It’s run by French native Louis Naepels (ex-head chef of Grossi Florentino) and his partner Tess Murray (ex-sommelier at Supernormal), one of the most naturally enthusiastic sommeliers I’ve had the privilege to encounter in some time. They opened Chauncy together in 2021.
Turning into the heritage-listed building’s driveway, you’ll first spot an organic garden abloom with life. Its towering sunflowers look so yellow and cheerful it’s as if they’re beaming at us, even welcoming us in. My partner and I are lucky to have arrived 15 minutes before our booking, so we wander leisurely among the happy bees and “ooh” and “aah” at all the fresh produce nestled amidst the leaves – zucchini flowers, pumpkins, spinach and lots more that the restaurant cultivates and prepares in its kitchen.
Provenance-conscious dining is nothing new in Victoria in 2025, so I’m curious about how the afternoon will set Chauncy apart from the rest.
Fresh flowers, tall arched windows and an antique mirror and chandelier mark the dining room as the dream parlour of any respectable high tea hostess. “I’d like this to be my lounge room,” I murmur to my partner. We’re started off with a crisp Champagne on arrival, a smart traditional ally for our first snack: two warm Comté gougères, glossy with a brush of egg wash. The light, airy shell encases a cashmere-soft centre; we savour each with relish. This is French snackery at its most gratifying.
The next drink, Domaine Cauhape’s L’Eclipse, is a dry white style from classic dessert wine country, brimming with fleshy stone fruit and pizzazz. It’s a more colourful style of aperitif than I’m used to in commencing a set menu, but it’s one that I appreciate. The first course makes yet another pitch-perfect impression: a humble triptych of pork rillettes; cucumber and radish with bagna càuda; and a plump carrot, orange and labneh medley. It’s all dippy, dabby, delightful stuff, but that lightly spiced and sumptuous pork has got to take the top gong for the tastiest meat starter I’ve enjoyed in a long while. Smearing it across lightly charred rectangles of toasted bread, I sigh at the pleasures of simple food executed so well.
Next, another veg-forward dish commands our attention: smooth curls of zucchini with Dreaming Goat cheese curd, brightened by lemon verbena and interspersed with heavenly hazelnuts. Call me a très basic gourmand, but in my opinion, zucchini has got to be one of the sexiest vegetables of all time. Its textural adaptability and faithful subservience to its innumerable saucy dominatrixes have impressed me ever since I first got my hands on a zoodle spiralising implement in a Berlin department store in 2017. The dish is a stunner with a phenomenal 2023 gruner veltliner from Weingut Knoll.
Chauncy’s menu du jour on this fine sunny January afternoon steps it up with the third course, a plate of delicate soft herb and ricotta ravioli. Is it the light, fleshy sweetness of its scattering of Skull Island prawns? The sharp herbaceous spikes of basil? The oil-slick buttery saucing treatment? It’s all of it, of course, and I gratefully wash each parcel down with a drop of its pairing – Domaine Gavoty’s Clarendon Cotes de Provence 2022. A rosy, raspberry-like lushness coats my mouth.
“It’s summer in a glass,” our hostess tells me with a smile that translates more like a fun-loving wink. It’s impossible not to be charmed by her zest for wine – the kind of passion so contagious it makes you want to pack a small backpack, fly to France and intern at some vineyard in the middle of nowhere for the hell of it. And if that wine is summer in a glass, then the ravioli’s pesto spirit certainly evokes European summer in a dish. This is all very good.
There are two books about France I remember loving in my early twenties: A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, and Coquilles, Calva and Creme: Exploring France’s Culinary Heritage by G.Y. Dryansky. In both books (particularly the latter), there’s frequent mention of France’s regional culinary magic outside of the hot Michelin territory of Paris. From thriving farmers’ markets to unsung cooks nailing classics at homestyle bistros, the disarmingly humble yet exceptional hospitality experiences in small French towns are a deserving source of cultural pride. Chauncy, smack-bang in the middle of Victorian wine country, seems to be cognisant of this heritage.
In a development that surprises neither of us, the duck l’orange is the showstopper of the day. Perfectly cooked breast and thigh meat come alive with the sweetness of cherry and beetroot, served with an irresistibly nutty haricot amandine and a Macedon Ranges pinot noir.
Dessert combines the treasures of apricot and speculoos (that festive-spiced biscuit), cradled with a crescent moat of sabayon. We’re in love.
The entire meal is all so wonderfully approachable, each bite anchoring one back to an important but occasionally forgotten truth: aside from nourishing, the most important thing food needs to be, simply, is tasty.
What’s in a name? Well, it turns out something, ol’ Billy Shakespeare. Chauncy, a surname of French and British origin, may simply refer to that 1800s surveyor we mentioned earlier. But it also translates loosely to “good fortune” – and though the ultra-talented and experienced Naepels and Murray certainly don’t need anything like luck to bolster their efforts, it’s clear that Chauncy is both blessed and blesses those who settle in at its sunlit tables.