Savouring The Tweed Coast

The Tweed Coast of the Northern Rivers Region of NSW is an area known for its laid back charm, fertile soils, beautiful beaches and scenic hinterland. It's also home to the Savour the Tweed food festival. We get a little preview of the upcoming 5 day festival, eat our way through and meet the many makers and personalities that make up the Tweed Coast food scene.

It's the second year for the Savour the Tweed food festival held from the 22nd to the 26th of October, 2025. The 5 day food festival was created by local food advocate Amy Colli and Chef Christine Mansfield who moved to the Tweed in March 2020. Christine already had the wheels in motion to move there before the pandemic but it proved to be fortuitous timing for both her and the Tweed Coast.

Murwillimbah Farmers Market

Our tour of the Tweed Coast starts at Murwillimbah Farmers Market where every Wednesday, 45-60 produce stalls flesh out the farmer's market. There are no arts and crafts here, this is purely a produce and food market. The smell of bacon fills the air and we hear the sound of cups clinking. These markets are a plastic free zone where people drink their tea and coffee using ceramic cups. These then get washed by volunteers and are returned to their vendors.

We warm up with a hot cup of chai heavily spiced with ginger and turmeric and survey the crowd. Most of the patrons of this farmer's market are buying items like locally grown pumpkins, yacon (earth apple) and chocolate ice cream fruit. It's very much a community event with families filling up the centre paddock enjoying the winter sun and eating food from the stalls there.

• Wednesday 22 October 2025
• 7:00 am 11:00 am
• Murwillumbah Showground, 37 Queensland Road, Murwillumbah, NSW
• Free Entry

Kat Harvey Cheese, Murwillimbah

"I love the smell of cow shit," says fromager Kat Harvey. Our next stop at her cheese shop also in Murwillimbah within the town centre. Dairy runs in her veins; Kat was born in Mount Wanganui in New Zealand where her father was a dairy farmer. She now sells artisan cheeses from all over the world along with cheese toasties and cheese topped baked potatoes.

We start with a tasting of cheeses with a Toma della Rocco from Piedmont, Italy with a tiny dab of cumquat jam on top. Then we segue onto a divine combination: Époisses on squares of fruit cake. I would say that if you try this combination once, you'll try it again as the buttery Époisses works perfectly with the soft, dense fruit cake.

"Who wants to try a sharp cheddar?" Kat asks and we all nod happily. She offers us some cheese from Isle of Mull in Scotland that is a bold, bitey, raw milk cheddar that pairs well with whisky.

• Saturday 2 November 2024

• 3:30 pm 5:00 pm

• Kat Harvey Cheese 105 Wollumbin Street, Murwillumbah, NSW

• Sold out

Pasta'bah, Murwillumbah

A few minutes walk away is Pasta'bah, a "Pasture to pasta" story. The story starts in 2018 at Fabian Fabbro's Woodland Valley farm 7kms south from the shop in Murwillumbah. They turned the second grade eggs from their pasture raised chicken into pasta (along with sauces, custards, mayonnaise, eggs and beef from their cattle). They also make use of local and Italian ingredients; the semolina used is grown in Bellata, NSW and is milled on the spot and it is said to have twice the nutrition of other semolina flour. The Italian 00 flour is "Glyphosate (herbicide) free" and they are turning one room into a dedicated gluten free production here at the shop.

Being located down an alley hasn’t dampened customer numbers. They stock everything from Egyptian hibiscus tea to their lemon parsley spaghetti, giant tins of potato chips and freshly filled cannoli. And they are also one of Australia’s few carbon positive businesses that don't purchase carbon credits. To achieve this they use regenerative farming methods putting carbon from the atmosphere back into the ground. They produce enough carbon to power production for 6 years.

Their eggs are sold in reusable plastic cartons made from discarded PET bottles and customers are encouraged to bring in their own cartons. So far the old reused plastic egg carton is from July 2019.

• Friday 24 October 2025

• 5:00 pm 8:00 pm

• Woodland Valley Farm 7117 Tweed Valley Way Fernvale, NSW

• $120 per person

Ventura Brewing, Murwillumbah

Ventura Brewing is an alternative drink brewery started by childhood mates Dom Hurley and Shanu Walsh and is Australia's first alcoholic kombucha brewery. It all started like so many great ideas do, in Shanu's tiny garage in 2018 where they focused on kombucha to give themselves a point of difference. The brand launched in late 2020 and the pair are entirely self taught.

"We have something for everyone," says Dom. Take their drinks like Elderflower Moonshine or a Lemon and Desert Lime hard iced tea with 6% alcohol. This is based on lemon lime bitters and uses Darjeeling tea. Their vanilla cola is very interesting with a range of ingredients from rosehip shells, vanilla, coriander, coffee and is aged in toasted French oak.

Customers at the cellar door can have a tasting flight for $20 and there's also a small selection for the sober curious too. Hardcore beer lovers also have a choice with guest taps from local breweries and there are pizzas available to order too. And the name? It means luck and fortuna and it also the name of a place that the friends travelled to together: Ventura County in California.

• Saturday 25 October 2025

• 6:30 pm 8:30 pm

• Ventura Brewing 141 Lundberg Drive Murwillumbah, NSW

• $130 per person

Apex Dining, Murwillumbah

Apex Dining is the in-house restaurant for the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre. The couple that have run the museum's restaurant for the past 3 years are Hannah Setchell and Toby Bamford with Andelson Del Vega as their chef. Hannah is a trained chef. She first started work on the Great Ocean Road, then Lorne and then Coffs Harbour. The male dominated toxic kitchen environment robbed her of her passion for cooking and after having five kids she realised she didn’t enjoy being a chef any more. She moved into a front of house role before meeting her second husband Toby; he had a corporate background and was from Sydney and this meshed well with her self described "hippy background". She returned to cheffing and started businesses that created strong female dominant chefs. "It was time to create strong dominant females," she says.

Start with the deep fried chicken with pepper berry sauce - a version of karaage chicken that is full of flavour and freshly fried. Then try the grilled flatbread with satay sauce and coconut raita. Two of the most popular mains are garlic prawns with a creamy coconut sauce and lemongrass rice.

Another favourite is the nourishing bowl which is a plate of salad with pickles with three different types of pickles. The first is a basic 1,2,3 type of pickle then the second uses star anise chilli, while the third uses pepper berry and bay leaf. I really enjoy this and the different textures and flavours of the pickles.

Make sure to head to the art gallery which has some fantastic exhibits. Maria Fernanda Cardoso's "Spiders is in paradise" exhibition is a revelation of nature. The exhibition is devoted to the tiny 4mm/0.16inch big Australian Maratus spider . These close up portraits and videos of this fascinating and vibrant coloured patterned spider look almost unreal. The males engage in elaborate courtship dances to try and woo the female and this is shown in the video exhibit.

• Saturday 25 October 2025

• 5:00 pm 6:30 pm

• Apex Dining at Tweed Regional Gallery, 2 Mistral RoadSouth Murwillumbah, NSW

• $65 per person

Natural Wine Shop and Bar, Burringbar

The secret password at Natural Wine Shop and Bar is: "Dirty laundry". Part the maroon velvet curtains of the Natural Wine Shop and Bar in Burringbar and step into a gorgeous little speakeasy. This former laundromat was transformed by owner Bron Harrison from a laundromat to a darkly lit, seductive speakeasy. Bron was a former musician, drummer and percussionist who has a passion for natural wines. This business actually started off as a wine store (which is adjacent to the bar). “People wanted to keep drinking. We were turning them away,” she says.

Although Burringbar's population is small at around 1000 people, this bar has become a popular bar at night. By day, she subleases the space to Pourgood Coffee who serve coffee in the morning as the bar would otherwise be closed then. On Friday and Saturday nights they have full cocktail table service but on Thursday and Sunday she offers a "DIY service" to keep costs down. People can help themselves to a bottle of wine from the store and pay the store price plus $20 corkage. They can also help themselves to purchase cheese from the fridge. These nights make the bar more accessible to people and only requires 1 staff member.

We start the evening with a glass of crisp, bright and fresh Moorak sparkling wine with some cured venison, Comte cheese and Italian strawberry mostarda. Moorak wines are made in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia and the sparkling has Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay grapes. The winery is a one man show with Jordan Hein behind it. He has had no formal training in winemaking and he explains that natural wines are a raw expression of the wine. Natural wines use organic fruit and are fermented using wild yeast with a low amount of sulfur dioxide and low preservative.

And if you need more of the sparkling stuff, look up to the centre of the ceiling for the "push for champagne" button!

• Friday 24 October 2025

• 2:30 pm 9:30 pm

• The Natural Wine Shop & Bar, 29 BroadwayBurringbar, NSW

• $100 per person

No. 35, Cabarita

"This is my retirement" says Chef Rachel Duffy laughing. In April 2020 after working at Icebergs in Sydney and she moved to the Tweed Coast with the intention of retiring. Five years later, No. 35 is a popular restaurant on the Tweed Coast. The restaurant is located on the Tweed Coast Road opposite Halcyon House. Described as "Italian-ish", the restaurant is open from Wednesday to Saturday. From Wednesday to Friday they have a very popular happy hour with $10 Paloma cocktails and snacks and on Thursday nights they pick one pasta as a special.

The menu turns out solid hits like fluffy, spongy rosemary focaccia with whipped smoked garlic butter. Make sure to get one piece per person because you won't want to share.

Better still order the enormous prawns with nduja butter, dill and basil. And save some of the bread to scarpetta that delectable rich lightly spicy sauce.

One of their most popular snacks is their signature fish finger sandwich made with a golden brown crumbed snapper fillet on a disk of semicircle disc of soft white bread, baby spinach and mayonnaise

For your main, you can’t go wrong with the pasta like the casarecce with soft, pull-apart lamb shoulder. The rosemary pangrattato is such a clever idea to give it crunch and I want to recreate something similar this winter.

Pair this with the wonderfully crispy Brussels sprouts with crunchy toasted almond flakes, fresh mint and chilli on a bed of yogurt.

Dessert is a boozy tiramisu with thick layers of mascarpone cream. Just what you need to send you off into a deep slumber.

Savour The Tweed Event: Mediterranean Island Lunch

• Sunday 26 October 2025

• 11:30 am 4:30 pm

• No.35 Kitchen and Bar, 35 Tweed Coast RoadBogangar, NSW

• $90 per person

Raven Place, Clothiers Creek

"Our aim is to make organic produce available to everyone," says Michelle Kuramochi. In 2021 she switched her 22 year career as an international flight attendant for Qantas and took a voluntary redundancy and purchased Raven Place Farm, a space that she had been coveting for years. This regenerative micro farm is a collaboration between Michelle and regenerative farmer Rachael Sanderson who says, "All facets of the farm will grow food or medicine ". The area measures 6 acres with 2 acres dedicated as the regeneration zone.

The focus on Japanese food is not only because it is her passion, but it was a way for her to honour traditions that she learned living in Japan for 4 years and the skills that her Japanese mother in law taught her through her meals. The fridge holds ferments and pickles from ginger paste, turmeric paste, kimchi sushi, ginger and mustard. Meals and drinks available are coffees, matcha lattes, freshly fried gyoza and mochi plus a great little shop with house made Davidson plum jam and wooden bowls and plates at very reasonable prices.

The wood used for these bowl include some from invasive tree species that they're in the process of removing. They do everything here from scratch including all of the fermenting and pickling. All the food is made to order and cooked in tallow or rendered fat from butcher. All of the spent tallow and coffee grounds are turned into soap. Food scraps get fed to chickens and worms and they compost.

• Wednesday 22 October 2025

• 10:00 am 12:00 pm

• Raven Place4 Raven Place, Clothiers Creek, NSW

• $39 per person

Tropical Fruit World, Duranbah

One of the most popular stops on the Tweed Coast is Tropical Fruit World which is like a theme park for tropical fruit. Start with taking a selfie with a giant avocado in the background and go for a safari ride past a range of tropical fruit trees. We drive past longan trees as well as a wide variety of lychee trees and donkeys grazing on grass.

Guests can combine a farm tour with a tropical fruit tasting. Start with the lip puckeringly tart, indigenous Davidson plum that also contains 5 times the Vitamin C of oranges. Then try tamarillo (like a cross between a papaya and a tomato) as well as calamansi, passion fruit, egg yolk fruit or canistel and carambola or star apple. The black sapote or "chocolate pudding fruit" is also one of the most popular with its creamy texture and dark chocolate pudding-like appearance. My favourite is the Rollinia custard apple that has a light lemon meringue flavour but is incredibly soft, creamy and ripe.

And before you go, make sure to stop by the gift shop and buy some green papaya herb salt. It's their number one seller with a bit of a cult following and great seasoning for avocado toast.

• Saturday 25 October 2025

• 5:30 pm 8:30 pm

• Tropical Fruit World, 29 Duranbah RoadDuranbah, NSW

• $200 per person

Farm & Co, Cudgen

"My passion is farming and growing soil," says Michele Stevens owner of Farm & Co. She switched from the world of pediatric nursing to farming. When she and her family bought the 52 acres they realised that the farm was too small for the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane markets. They needed to grow something interesting.

After talking to a fellow farmer and learning that he was selling strawberries at the same price as 20 years ago, she realised that they also needed to change things - one advantage for smaller farms is that they can easily pivot. They started growing sunflowers for biodiversity with bugs as a green manure crop. Now sunflowers are their number one best selling crop followed avocados and macadamias. The sunflowers have proven so popular that people do photo shoots here. All parts of a sunflower are edible from the seeds, petals, sprouts and leaves (the latter after cooking).

They grow several types of avocados, including Charwell and Fuerte varieties in between 60-70 varieties of fruit and vegetables. Climb into one of the hammocks next to the sunflower fields and macadamia trees and listen to the chickens crowing. If you’re lucky the two resident rescue pigs Hank and Peppi will make an appearance.

On a sunny day,you can go for lunch or a farm tour. There are several types of set menus available as well as a picnic box. Start with some pizza fritta that is hot and puffy and served with house made smoked butter.

Pair it with a spanner crab and yuzu salad with cubes of nashi pear and fried Jerusalem artichoke chips for a refreshing starter which goes well with the puffy pizza bread.

For something more substantial, try the steak that is sliced and cooked to medium rare and served with cafe de Paris butter and Barbera wine jus.

The woodfire smoked potatoes are served with a coating of sumac butter.

Dessert is a spin on a cheese plate with slices of bruleed brie with sweet, jammy berry gastric with macadamias and lacey toast finished with a sprinkle of salt.

Savour The Tweed Event: Thai Feast in The Tweed

• Friday 24 October 2025

• 12:00 pm 2:30 pm

• Farm & Co, 529 Cudgen Road, Cudgen, NSW

• $95 Lunch (12pm - 2:30pm) $20 Farm Tour (11:15am - 11:45am)

Halcyon House, Cabarita

For our time on the Tweed Coast we are staying at Halcyon House. The last time I stayed at Halcyon House was in 2016 (see review here) with Mr NQN and I have very fond memories of our stay. Halcyon House was formerly a surf motel called "The Hideaway" that was bought by two sisters Siobhan and Elisha Bickle from Brisbane as a holiday house for their families. Those plans changed and in 2015 Halcyon House opened its doors to the public as a luxury hotel.

Not much has changed. It’s still a highly desirable hotel to stay at and the rooms look as good as new thanks to a recent renovation and they're celebrating their 10th birthday . Each room at Halcyon House is individually designed and no two rooms look alike. They are outfitted with good quality furnishings and fittings with everything you could need.

The bed is very comfortable with a large flatscreen TV and a large work desk although perplexingly there is no chair for the desk so perhaps that’s a hint to switch off and go for a dip in the pool downstairs. Or have a cocktail in their restaurant Paper Daisy.

The bathroom is spacious with a large shower and wide sink area and all the amenities that you would need including products by Evo. All of the mini bar except for alcohol is complimentary that includes organic teas, coffee chips, chocolates trail mix, sodas and juices. You are also welcome to take the Halcyon House tote bag and slippers home with you. Service is lovely from all of the staff, and I even get a phone call in the morning asking if I would like them to make breakfast for me if I am in a hurry.

The wellness centre was added in 2017, a year after our last stay. The space opens into a gift shop full of lovely gifts. Outside is a sauna and spa bath which are complimentary for hotel guests. Upstairs holds the treatment rooms, including a gorgeous couples treatment room.

• All in-house guests attending one or more Savour the Tweed events can enjoy a complimentary Andrew Milford Masterclass in Paper Daisy during their stay.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you often go to food festivals? Which place stood out to you?

NQN visited the Tweed Coast as a guest of Savour the Tweed but all opinions remain her own.

The Tweed Coast is an 8 hour drive or 1 hour 20 min flight from Sydney (to Coolangatta airport) or a 2 hour drive from Brisbane.