Margaret River Cellar Doors with the Best Food

The wine here gets the headlines. The food at the cellar doors is the reason you book.

Photo: Vasse Felix, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

I've been eating at the cellar doors in this region since 1982. Some places have changed names three times. A few have been the same since the eighties. What's stayed consistent is that the wineries with the best food tend to also have the best rooms, the best views, and the most thought given to the whole afternoon, not just the tasting.

This is a list of the cellar doors I'd send a visitor to if they wanted to eat as well as drink. In rough order from where I live, north to south.

Booking. Book everywhere. The big ones (Vasse Felix, Voyager, Leeuwin) fill up weeks ahead in peak season. Even the quieter ones get busy on weekends. Lunch service is when most cellar door restaurants are open; only a few do dinner. Plan your day around 12.30 to 2.30.

And the location bit, because it comes up: my workshop is on Blythe Rd in Yallingup, which puts it roughly in the middle of most of these wineries. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd. Stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. Most of the wineries below are between fifteen and forty minutes from the workshop. Convenient for a stop on the way to or from lunch.

Booking lunch at one of the cellar doors? My workshop is often a sensible last stop on the route. Free entry. Workshop viewing window. Three minutes off the Bussell Hwy at the Carbunup store turnoff.

The oldest cellar door in Margaret River. First vines planted 1967. The restaurant is still one of the best in the region. White tablecloths but unfussy. The view is across the home vineyard with old gum trees scattered through. The cooking is led by Aaron Carr who's been there a long time and treats local produce with the seriousness it deserves.

What I'd order: the seasonal degustation with time in hand, the a la carte without. The cheese course at the end is worth saving room for. You can book lunch at Vasse Felix directly through their site.

The art gallery upstairs is free and good. The current collection includes pieces I've quietly admired for years. Worth half an hour after lunch.

Voyager is the showpiece. Cape Dutch architecture, immaculate gardens, a long driveway lined with white roses. It looks like it's trying too hard until you sit down and realise everything is held to the same standard the building demands.

Photo: Stuart Sevastos, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Their Discovery Menu is a six-course tasting paired with their wines. It's not cheap. But it's a proper afternoon (three hours, maybe more) and the kitchen has consistently been at the top of the region's food scene for a decade. The casual cellar door menu is shorter and less expensive, served on the verandah looking down the rose garden, and is honestly what I'd order for a visitor's first time. Voyager Estate degustation booking is online and essential.

Cullen is biodynamic, family-run, and slightly out of step with everything else in the region in the best possible way. Vanya Cullen is making some of the most interesting wines in the country and the kitchen runs on the same logic: produce from the estate garden, seasonal menu, no apologies for what's not on it.

The restaurant is small. The room is plain. The food is the focus. I'd order the Diana Madeline pairing when here for the wine, or the garden lunch when here for the cooking. Booking essential.

Cape Mentelle has been around almost as long as Vasse Felix. The cellar door room is one of the prettiest in the region: open, light, with a long timber bar and views over the vines. They do a long lunch in their Wallcliffe Room on weekends with a set menu paired to their wines.

What's good here is the consistency. I've been eating here for thirty years and the food has never let me down. The Zinfandel paired with their charcuterie board on the verandah is the kind of cellar door experience that made this region famous.

Photo: Harry Foley, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Wills Domain is on Abbey Farm Road, just outside Yallingup. Ten minutes from my workshop. The restaurant has been chef-hatted for years running and is consistently one of the most ambitious kitchens in the region. The room sits up on a rise with views down the valley to a creek and a small lake.

The menu changes frequently. The set lunch is excellent value compared to Voyager and Vasse Felix and the cooking is at the same standard. Staying in Yallingup, this is probably the closest cellar door restaurant that I'd recommend without hesitation. Wills Domain Yallingup takes bookings online.

Clairault Streicker sits in beautiful country off Caves Road. The cellar door has wide grass lawns, an outdoor lunch area, and a kitchen that does relaxed, ingredient-led food well suited to a summer afternoon. The wines are good (they were always known for chardonnay) and the pairing options at lunch are well-handled.

I'd come here for a long weekend lunch in autumn or spring when the weather lets you sit outside. The space is generous. Kids do well here, which not every cellar door manages. Clairault Streicker bookings are online.

Leeuwin is further south, closer to Margaret River town than to Yallingup. The Art Series chardonnay is one of the most awarded wines in the country. The restaurant matches it. White tablecloths, refined cooking, set menu options that pair with the wine library.

The concert lawn at Leeuwin hosts the famous summer concert series. Anyone here in February should know about that separate event. The food on concert nights is catered for the crowd and not the same standard as the regular restaurant. Go for the cellar door lunch on an ordinary day instead.

Howard Park is the cellar door. Madfish is the more relaxed sister label they serve in the casual area. The room is striking, designed on principles of feng shui, which sounds odd until you sit in it for an hour and realise it actually feels different from every other cellar door. They do a generous tasting and a small menu of platters and lighter food.

Worth a stop more for the room than for a destination lunch. Cellar-door-hopping with a substantial snack alongside the tasting? This is the one. For the relaxed-afternoon version with no formality and a fire pit, Swings & Roundabouts sits at the other end of the spectrum.

Aravina is in Yallingup proper, ten minutes from my workshop. The restaurant has a large outdoor area, a lake, vintage cars on display in the cellar door (an oddity, but it works), and a kitchen that does dependable bistro food. It's not the most ambitious food on this list, but the setting is one of the easiest places to spend a few hours in the region. Families do well here too.

Stella Bella isn't a restaurant cellar door in the strict sense (they do food on certain days and platters most of the time) but the wines are some of the most interesting in the region and the cellar door room has personality. With lunch booked elsewhere, drop in for a tasting and a charcuterie board. They make a Pinot Noir that I drink at home more than I should.

Here's how I'd run a cellar door day, with one full day to give it.

1. 10am

   Cullen Wines

   Tasting in the cellar door. Light. Their range rewards careful attention so don't rush.
2. 12.30pm

   Voyager Estate

   Lunch — the casual verandah menu, not the full degustation. Allow two hours.
3. 3pm

   Vasse Felix

   Drop in for the art gallery upstairs and a glass of the Heytesbury chardonnay at the cellar door bar. No food — you've already eaten.
4. 4.30pm

   John Streater Fine Furniture

   Fifteen minutes from Vasse Felix on the way back to Yallingup. Workshop viewing, gallery, kettle on.

where to go after Vasse Felix for variations on how to round out the afternoon.

A few of the cellar doors in the region trade hard on tourist traffic without the cooking or the wines to back it up. I'm not going to name them. A winery advertising on every billboard between Busselton and Margaret River is usually working harder on marketing than on the kitchen. Stick to the names above and you won't be disappointed.

I haven't included every winery with a kitchen. There are at least twenty more that could be on this list. These are the ones I've eaten at most often, where the cooking is consistent, and where I'd send a first-time visitor without hesitation.

the local wineries write-up for the longer winery list with less focus on food. where to eat across a Yallingup weekend for the broader food week.

Photo: Michelle Corcoran, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The food at the best cellar doors in this region holds its own against the wine, which is saying something. Pick two, book ahead, and don't try to fit in three. That's the lunch.