Why Australia’s Once-Sleepy Hobart Is a Magnet for Down Under’s Top Chefs

Rising star chef David Moyle might go where the wind takes him, but his decision to plant roots in Hobart wasn’t an accident. After years working in kitchens in cosmopolitan Melbourne and bohemian Byron Bay, Moyle decided to take a chance on Hobart, a community of just 200,000 on the island of Tasmania.

Moyle now runs Franklin, an industrial-chic restaurant with polished concrete floors, a massive open kitchen, and constant buzz. His dishes tend to be “low intervention,” bringing out the sweet notes of, say, a lovingly grown grilled zucchini by pairing it with a slightly tart but creamy goat’s curd. “I realized that I wanted to connect with growers, with the source,” says Moyle, who, with his long beard and man bun, imparts a charmingly laid-back surfer-Jesus vibe. “It’s addictive once you start cooking this way. You can keep it quite simple, leaving a lot unsaid.” Moyle commutes weekly between restaurant projects in Melbourne and Hobart.

For many years, Hobart was a relatively sleepy little secret gem, but Tasmania’s capital is rapidly becoming one of Australia’s most important food scenes. Chefs from across Australia are relocating to Hobart to open restaurants and take advantage of the remarkable natural environment and excellent local produce. And these new culinary transplants are bringing big-city style and sensibility to Hobart’s fruitful soil and small-town charm to create a majorly outsized culinary scene.

Sarah Fitzsimmons and Kobi Ruzicka moved from Melbourne last July to build Dier Makr, a sleek bistro that opened in December. They offer a tasting menu highly dependent on seasonal and even daily variations, like smoked tuna belly, fig leaves with apricot, and sourdough bread (ubiquitous and excellent across the city) made from 100 percent Tasmanian flour.

Fitzsimmons says they were drawn by the relative affordability, sense of community, and high-quality local ingredients. “We wanted to jump on board to help create this scene, which has been blossoming so much over the past year,” she says. “I think it’s going to continue to thrive and strengthen as it attracts like-minded people who all want to escape the big-city vibe and join a much purer scene like this one.”

This now-bursting culinary scene has actually been building for a while. Mona, the extraordinary Museum of Old and New Art that opened in 2011, put a cosmopolitan wind in the city’s sails and become a major lure for visitors. Vince Trim moved from Sydney several years ago to helm the kitchen at MONA’s The Source, an early adopter of Hobart’s contemporary localism movement. Today, in a glass-walled dining room overlooking the museum grounds, his menu is a tribute to Tasmanian produce, from cinnamon-simmered lamb shoulders to Norfolk Bay oysters.

Hobart is tidily wedged between a quaint seaside port and Mount Wellington, and a true bounty is collected from both land and sea. Tasmania has long been heavily dependent on local producers for food and drink, spoiled with plump cherries, heritage pigs, creamy wildflower honey, and craft beers that rival the best in the world. The weekend markets, full of goods from local producers, are arguably the biggest events on Hobart’s social calendar. Menus at slick new restaurants across the city boast about local ingredients both purchased and foraged.

It’s not hyperbolic to call food an object of worship in Hobart. All over town, chefs come out of the kitchen and kneel at your table, head slightly bowed, as they describe dishes full of pickled garlic scapes and cocktails with stewed local apricots and indigenous herbs. It’s easy to guess what’s in season because it shows up in near-perfect incarnations, again and again, on menus across town.

Aløft, a “modern Australian” restaurant with underlying Asian influences that overlooks the Hobart harbor, is the kind of au courant place you might see a trio of tattooed bros sucking back Aperol spritzes while chowing down on grilled quail lightly seasoned with white pepper. The menu is full of playful and ambitious combinations, like tempura saltbush (a very salty sea vegetable) with an adapted Green Goddess sauce. Chef Glenn Byrnes, who moved to Hobart a few years ago from Melbourne, excitedly shares seasonal and foraged goodies—like plum compote made with fruit he pulled off a tree on his way to work.

In addition to transplants from other parts of the country, the Hobart dining scene also encourages the return of Tasmanians—referred to locally as “homing pigeons.” One such pigeon is Oskar Rossi, who worked around in Melbourne, Majorca, and Oman before returning last year with his Italian wife, Federica Andrisani. The duo now run Fico, working side by side in a kitchen that turns out stunningly thoughtful dishes, including game meats and homemade pastas. One standout combination is tender octopus, seared but creamy, paired beautifully with fennel, crisp baby radishes, and slightly acerbic barberries.

Rossi says that he and Andrisani were influenced by the young food culture and strong sense of community between growers and restaurants. “There is also some excellent local produce and a really great buzz about Hobart and Tasmania internationally,” he says.

While still relatively off the beaten tourist path for North Americans, Hobart is poised for further growth. There’s a runway extension in the works, which will allow for some direct international flights. And the very chic 114-room MACq 01—complete with Old Wharf restaurant, a tribute to Tasmania’s fishing industry—will open this month, the first hotel to open on the city’s waterfront in over a decade. There are several other hospitality projects in the works, including both Marriott and Hyatt hotels.

Chefs and restaurateurs from across Australia have been drawn to Hobart for its local produce and flexibility, but also the opportunity to build something that feels inevitably great. They’re laying the groundwork for the future of one of the world’s most promising food scenes. The changes have been so rapid that some complain of a strain on little Tasmania’s supply chain, especially for fishermen and farmers accustomed to shipping their wares to the mainland. But backyard producers have popped up to fill the gaps; growing baby turnips and heirloom squash as a side gig has become the Uber of Hobart.

Fitzsimmons is hopeful that the Hobart dining scene’s symbiotic relationship with local producers will thrive as the city becomes a bigger and bigger draw—as even the newest locals strive to protect the treasures yielded from Tasmania’s water and soil. “The establishment of this amazing food culture has to be tied in with the cleanliness of the air, land, and water down here,” says Fitzsimmons. “There are things of quality to be had when you come here, and it all seems to be so beautifully untouched, unspoiled.”