Bar Botanica — Restaurant in New South Wales

(4.5 stars) Move over Sydney, the Central Coast has got the daytime gin bar exactly right at Bar Botanica. Well, it will have when Liquor & Gaming NSW finally gives the green light to sip gin wherever you want inside the grounds of The Fragrant Garden. You’ll find the picturesque, nearly fifty-year-old garden tucked on a leafy green ridgeline in Erina, neatly separated from the suburb's residential sprawl.

Since 2005, the three-acre garden has been home to herbalist and distiller, Philip Moore’s, Distillery Botanica. For a boutique distillery, this outfit has had more than its fair share of hits, including Moore’s Dry Gin, and Mr Black Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur. The latter forms the basis of at least half the espresso martinis you’ll find littered across Sydney’s cocktail bars.

About two-and-a-half years ago, Moore was joined at the Distillery Botanica site by local couple, Julia and Dan Hughes who make Mr Goaty Gelato. While they’ve been churning gelato onsite for the past few years, opening Bar Botanica is a more recent endeavour for the pair. It started with renovating the attractive 1970s mud-brick hut into one of the prettiest places I can remember eating gelato. The resulting garden café, bar and gelateria is basically the only place you can now get Mr Goaty Gelato, which isn’t really suitable to roll out into shops because it doesn’t contain chemical stabilisers.

The synchronicity between the two businesses – Distillery Botanica and Bar Botanica – is pretty incredible. Both the gin and gelato often employ flowers and botanicals from the garden that surrounds them. The same coffee beans you’ll find in Mr Black are served in Bar Botanica. I try it across a Piccolo Latte ($3.50) and a Cappuccino ($4) and really rate it – robust and throaty.

The wider menu, which takes the British concept of ‘elevenses’ and extends it to all day; but I’m here just to eat gelato. Despite the name, the majority of flavours on today’s eight-flavour list are made using grass-fed Jersey milk. They do always keep one or two goat milk-based flavours on hand.

We get stuck into six different flavours across two Duos ($8) and one Trio ($10) with a fifty-cent add-on for choosing the only goat milk flavour – banana, cinnamon and caramel. It’s lighter than I expected, and creamy on the back palate. By adding coconut oil rather than goat's cream, Hughes reduces the ‘goaty’ flavour, resulting in an easy-to-like gelato where I doubt you'd easily pick the milk.

The first thing that strikes me about his cow milk gelato is the texture – every flavour I try is oh-so-silky and smooth. Along with being lower in fat than ice cream (because it uses milk rather than cream) gelato is served at a slightly warmer temperature than ice cream, which neatly avoids ice crystals. Dan also stores his gelato in the traditional way – stainless steel cylinders called pozzetti - that keep it temperature controlled at all times. As attractive as those mountains of gelato look, gelato stored this way is much better!

I kick off with the insanely good vanilla bean that hits you straight in the pleasure centres, transporting you back to retro corner store vanilla milkshakes served in ice-cold stainless-steel cups. While Belgian chocolate will no doubt please the choccy fiends, I’m more drawn to turmeric & orange. The turmeric was growing in the garden until this very morning when it was dug up and churned directly into gelato because Dan sold out yesterday. You don’t get more garden-to-gelato than this! In the resulting light but volatile gelato you really get a sense of turmeric being a root like ginger, with none of the chalky traces you get from using powdered spice.

Mr Goaty’s sorbets are also a standout. Local lemon is made using fruit grown in nearby Mangrove Mountain. It’s lovely and sherbet-like, walking the line perfectly between being too sour and being too sweet. I can see it working perfectly in a gin gelato cocktail down the track. I end on deep red Tasmanian raspberry that literally explodes in your mouth with...

We have been here now and very disappointed. We were encouraged to order through the tap and pay at the table which said many things on the menu were unavailable. So we ordered what was left with limited choice only to see other food come out after we placed our order that we wanted to order in the first place. One of our party is gluten free vegetarian and she was told that there was none available and it was the only thing she could have … however these were served afterwards as well. Coffee was cold. Meat pies were lovely but Luke warm. No gas left in the gas heaters and they had no more. Asked for blankets which never arrived and when we reasked we were told they had none left. Toilets were unclean and no toilet paper and dirty. Overall as locals we found it really disappointing and...

I was incredibly disappointed with my recent visit to Bar Botanica in Erina. 😡 I arrived during their stated open hours, anticipating a relaxing afternoon. However, to my dismay, neither food nor coffee was available. 😔 This was a major letdown, especially since they were supposed to be open until 5 p.m. 👎 It's frustrating when businesses fail to deliver on their promises and waste your time. I had specifically planned my visit around the hours listed. I expected to enjoy a drink and possibly a snack. 🍹 The lack of options left me feeling very unhappy and dissatisfied with the experience. I would not recommend visiting based on my experience. Overall, this was a frustrating and disappointing encounter. #BarBotanica #Erina #Disappointed #OpenHoursFail...