Johnny Ripe is a small bakery cafe and farm gate providore in Main Ridge, Mornington Peninsula. It’s located inside Red Hill Lavender Farm and Distillery, a commercial producer of lavender essential oils.
The rolling hills of lavender fields create a picturesque setting. As I enter the grand stone gates and take in the fields and orchards I’m transported to Provence.
Red Hill Lavender Farm and Distillery and Johnny Ripe belong to different owners, as the Johnny Ripe team just lease the kitchen and cafe area. The food business used to reside in the home of one of the business partners before it got too busy.
It is still a small, but extremely popular, operation and if you’re in the Mornington Peninsula on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday then you must make it a priority to visit. Food-wise it was one of the highlights of our recent visit to the Mornington Peninsula.
The farm gate serves coffee and then it’s a matter of selecting goodies from a glass cabinet piled high with take home meals, pies, cakes, tarts and preserves. All the products are made onsite and with homegrown or local ingredients. They are famous for their apples pies which uses apples from the owners’ orchard and you can buy individual pies or family-sized pies. The pie pastry was buttery golden encasing chunks of apple inside. Seriously delicious and as close to home made as you can get, without the work.
From the bakery we also took home a beef lasagna, with a perfect distribution of bechamel and meat in between thick pasta sheets. It was excellent value for $30.
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Next to the bakery is the cosy restaurant, with a imposing stone fireplace taking centre stage – perfect for autumnal days.
The country-cottage restaurant is child-friendly in that it offers pram access, high chairs, a small child’s menu and outside there is lots of space to run around. It’s also a bonus that it’s one of the few cafes in the area that opens early at 8am.
The menu is small and makes the best use of the products made on site. The menu changes on a seasonal basis depending on what is growing in the orchard or vegetable patch. They raise free-range chickens and ducks and the eggs are used in the baking.
Simple toast and jam equalled handmade crusty bread with apple jam made with orchard apples, the chia pudding contained apple as well and the bacon and scrambled eggs was held aloft by a huge hunk of bread.
The cooking was honest, the flavours but hearty and fresh. The kitchen really lets the quality of the produce do the talking.
T rated the dining experience at Johnny Ripe as his favourite in the Mornington Peninsula and I agree. The food is simply superb, both in the cafe and takeaway, and the bucolic setting is stunning. On a nice day sit out on the deck and enjoy the view.
On weekends they hold a set menu supper club on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday lunch, where you get $60 three course set menu and it’s $5 to BYO wine. I hear it regularly books out!
Johnny Ripe is part of Wine Food Farmgate, a collection and trail of the best of Mornington Peninsula’s wineries, eateries and farmgate providores. For other child-friendly places on the Wine Food Farmgate trail try Flinders Hotel and Green Olive at Red Hill .
HOT Tips:
- pram access;
- high chairs;
- children’s menu;
- standard menu suitable for children;
- lots of room to run outside; and
- free parking on site.
Johnny Ripe, Red Hill Lavender Farm and Distillery, 284 Main Creek Road, Main Ridge VIC 3928 (03) 5989 6515
Farm Gate: Friday, Saturday, Sunday 8am-4pm
Restaurant: Friday, Saturday & Sunday 8am-11.30am
Lunch: Friday, Saturday & Sunday 12noon-3pm
Dinner: Saturday (bookings essential for dinner)
