BRookland valley EstAte

On a cloudy May Day we took ourselves down Caves Road in the Margaret River wine region to the Brooklands Valley Winery, home of Flutes Restaurant.

The reason I mention it was a cloudy day is because Paul favours clear blue skies and sunny days for photographs. It’s unusual for us to head to a winery without his trusted camera, but on this occasion, and most likely because the day was overcast, we arrived with only our iPhones with which to take photos.

After sampling some wines we headed across to Flutes Restaurant.

The food

Our normal practice when dining out is to pick a small share plate of something for starters, have a main course each, and to share a dessert. On this occasion though we were using a birthday gift voucher, and the best way to make full use of it was to order the three course special which offered choices for each course.

We still started with something to share, the charcuterie board for two. I apologise – it looked so good we tucked in straight away without giving a thought to showing you what we ate. We both love charcuterie, but this one surpassed all others that we’ve had. It was well presented, abundant, and every morsel on the board was mouth-wateringly delicious. A full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon did it full justice as an accompaniment.

Next came our mains. Paul had the roast duck, while I had a chicken dish. Both were very nice, however, we couldn’t do them justice as the charcuterie was more than enough, and the mains just weren’t needed.

For a medium to high priced restaurant (around $40 a main) the food was substantial. I say that because in our experience we find the more we pay, the less we get, with the quality usually making up for the lack in quantity. On this occasion, both quality and quantity were evident in abundance.

The view was conducive to lingering between courses, thank goodness, as we needed to allow some time for our mains to settle before our dessert arrived.

Everything below us looked calm and peaceful with the occasional duck paddling along, leaving mesmerising ripples in its wake.

Dessert arrive – deliciously sweet, sticky date pudding (sticky toffee pudding if you’re from the UK). Again, apologies but no photos.

Each course is worth recommending, but three courses proved to be to much food. We were full. The mains were delicious but we hadn’t needed them. The stand out course for the day was absolutely the charcuterie.

The grounds were lovely for an after lunch meander.

So what did you think of Paul’s photographs taken with an iPhone on a cloudy day?I think he needs to reconsider his thoughts on ideal photography skies, don’t you!