FALL IN LOVE AT FIRST BITE
AFriday pizza night could be a sad stack of cardboard boxes full of lukewarm pizza and a Netflix binge, but in the hands of the Port Cygnet Cannery it’s a memorable evening of outstanding food, service and atmosphere.
The fixed-price menu ($45) begins with an entree of pickled vegetables (radishes, carrots, green beans and more) from their sister farm at Gardners Bay and is served with a velvety cashew cream topped with vibrant basil oil. It’s simple but effective as the table collectively sighs with delight at their first mouthful. There are six pizzas to choose from and between us, we manage to try four of them including the Peggy (pork sausage from the farm with tomato and smoked mozzarella), the Sally (salami, olives and pickled chilli) and the Terry featuring Spring Bay mussels with potato and sour cream.
“Some people have said there are not enough toppings,” says creative director Franca Zingler, “but when your ingredients are this good, you don’t have to overload it.”
The pizzas – a thin sourdough base with a puffy crust, “the kind of pizza we like to eat,” says Zingler, are baked in a wood-fired pizza oven imported from Naples and nicknamed Dante. It sits proudly at one end of the open kitchen and, on cold nights, the table near the oven is the place to be.
A chunky garden salad for the table accompanies the pizzas, which are pleasing blistered around the crust and in my opinion contain the perfect amount of truly excellent toppings.
Housed in a former apple cannery on the banks of Catos Bay in Cygnet that has been beautifully transformed into a restaurant and event space, the Cannery team, headed by creative director Franca Zingler and chef Lachlan Colwill is creating food that truly celebrates place. The Saturday lunch (now rescheduled from dinnertime to enable people to drive home in daylight) is a nine-course festival ($95) of vegetables expertly prepared by Colwill, who has a history with outstanding regional restaurants. The menu changes depending on what’s ready to harvest at the farm and Colwill works closely with the farmers so they can “plan ahead together. It’s beautiful to see,” says Zingler. She and her partners were inspired by Denmark’s Farm of Ideas, established by chef Christian F. Puglisi, to establish a farm and restaurant that run together. “Initially we had to buy from local farmers, but last year was very productive, which is great. It’s a closed loop – anything that’s left over goes back to the farm for compost.”
The night we dined, the menu included a dish of beetroot that had been cooked and then thinly sliced and served with ponzu and sesame oil, to be eaten with chopsticks. The presentation was exceptional as were the flavours. A rogan josh pie was warming, rich and eaten with relish by even the most enthusiastic carnivores in our party. “Lachlan tweaks and changes the dishes so much,” says Zingler who made some changes to the Cannery as a result of Covid. “That gave us time to reassess – it had really been a flurry since we opened.”
Now, rather than an a la carte restaurant, the Cannery offers pizza on Thursday and Friday nights – a family-friendly affair that can include a game or two of table tennis. Saturdays are a more refined option with the nine-course degustation menu for those who are interested in pushing the boundaries and the Sunday lunch ($65) is a more relaxed event featuring roast pork (from the Gardners Bay farm of course) as well as exquisite dishes using local seafood and other produce.
Desserts are no afterthought either – at pizza night I was impressed by a beautifully presented bowl of caramelised white chocolate ganache, topped with Jerusalem artichoke ice cream (don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it) and apple sorbet. This is, without doubt, one of the best things I’ve eaten all year.
The Saturday event’s finishing touches were just as impressive – a chocolate-dipped rhubarb popsicle, quince with white chocolate yoghurt and a delicate sandwich of thin wafers sandwiching a cloudlike marshmallow.
Arrive at the Port Cygnet Cannery without expectations and leave with a new appreciation for what can be achieved when exceptional ingredients are prepared by an expert.