Local Hero

At Pipit, in tiny Pottsville, Ben Devlin takes his cues from the coast and the community.

- David Matthews

Turning onto Coronation Avenue in Pottsville there’s a painted strip on the asphalt saying this is a Koala Zone. Neighbourhood Watch signs line the streets. On the main strip, there’s a couple of bottle shops, a pizza place, an IGA, and this, Pipit, a restaurant built from scratch by a couple with a new baby. Outside, the streets are empty, but inside, it’s pumping.

Like Fleet in Brunswick Heads, or Doma in Federal, the appearance of a good new restaurant in this town of 6000, about 30 minutes’ drive north of Byron, is big news in these parts. The locals know Ben Devlin, for one. A Byron boy, the chef cooked at Esquire in Brisbane, Noma in Copenhagen and most recently, Paper Daisy at breezy Halcyon House, where he oversaw a menu laden with local seafood and beach greens.

Here it’s still local, but freer, more elemental, the menu changing with supply from a tight network of growers and suppliers. A simple canapé might include cucumbers, wing beans, radishes and young angled gourd from nearby Boon Luck Farm, piled into a bowl with a dab of almond cream. An éclair-like “finger bun” filled with mullet cream is topped with blobs of new-season Brazilian cherry. The kitchen’s confidence in its technique is clear from the get-go – the crisp shell collapsing to the bite, cream spilling.