Good Times

Chef Tansy Good returns with a country bistro that’s all classics and class

- Michael Harden

Is it wrong to get emotional about sardines? These are silvery, juicy, expertly butterflied numbers from Port Lincoln, laid out on an orange-rimmed plate, topped with a swirl of pink house-pickled onions and accompanied by a wedge of lime. Soused for four hours in a finely tuned combo of lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar and herbs, they’re thrillingly firm and clean flavoured, a masterclass in the beauty of simplicity. Only the hard-hearted could remain unmoved.

But there’s another excuse for getting choked up. These sardines are the work of Tansy Good, one of Melbourne’s most influential chefs, master of classic French technique, inspiration to the likes of Karen Martini, Philippa Sibley, Andrew and Matt McConnell, Rita Macali and Gerald Diffey.

It’s been a while since Good has done her own stuff in her own kitchen. Now, in regional Victoria with sommelier partner John Evans in a weatherboard house with a garden on Kyneton’s Piper Street, she’s created the next incarnation of her eponymous restaurant, first spotted in Melbourne in the 1980s.