No2 Oak Street Bellingen NSW Australia 02 6655 9000
No2 Oak Street Bellingen
The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2010
25th Anniversary addition

Inside is cosy, but the outside verandah is equally homely, and extension of the warm hospitality for which this restaurant is renowned. As legendary is the cooking here: restrained, carefully composed creations of impeccable technique and wondrous flavours. To start, lovely house-made bread arrives puffing out little pots, with tomato relish, quality butter, olive oil and balsamic.

A hillock of the most tender black Kinkawooka mussels in a delicate tomato broth arrives laced with pesto and crunchy chargrilled toast,; another amber broth, saffron scented, yields both wild spinach and rare ocean trout crested with perfect aioli. Fried polenta cake, gold it its ringlet of tomato oil, is more like a cloud-light soufflé beneath a herbaceous melange of meaty mushrooms. Don’t be misled by the smallish serves; this food is rich and complex, so that even the chocolate and espresso assiette – granita, bavarois, ice-cream and flourless chocolate cake – might require that extra stomach. Laughing staff ensure, above all, that you’ll have fun.

And…”Bello” has had a rough trot with wild weather and floods, but No.2 powers on
 
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