STORY BY LARISSA DUBECKI, PHOTOS BY CHRIS TURNER

Learmonth, population 438, is the kind of Victorian town that most people have never heard of. Once visited, however, it’s impossible to forget.

Around 20 minutes’ drive from Ballarat, this leafy corner of Central Victoria is as pretty as it gets. Broad streets are lined with period beauties and the imposing Lake Learmonth acts as a dramatic backdrop. And once you encounter Café Sidra on the tree-lined main avenue the town’s charm offensive is complete.

Opened two years ago by married couple Belinda Brooksby and Anthony Penhall it’s the country café from central casting, housed in a character-filled building with almost as much history as the town itself.

“it goes back to 1855,” says Brooksby of the space she’s decorated with a surfeit of easygoing style, including a welcoming outdoor area with a wood-fired pizza oven. “It was a wood merchant operation then a funeral directors’, then a café then a fish and chip shop.”

The Café Sidra name will be a hint to anyone with some Spanish under their belt. Sidra translates to “cider”, and the café doubles as the cellar door for Learmonth-based traditional cidermakers 321 Cider. As the self-taught cook behind the operation, Brooksby has embraced the opportunity to cook with cider as well as showcase a menu of cider-friendly food. That might mean a burger of crisp, cider-marinated pork belly with `slaw and apple chutney, the simplicity of a grazing platter with house-made pickles and pate, or a best-in-show apple strudel. “I have to add that one of our biggest sellers is soup, because of the climate, and I make a lot of cakes. Carrot cake just walks out the door.”

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Penhall, a Ballarat boy, is as passionate about coffee as his wife is about food, brewing the perfect cup from Wild Timor ethical beans. He’s a keen gardener, too, with an impressive organic veggie patch behind the café through which visitors can ramble. What the garden can’t supply is covered by a retinue of locals, some of them decidedly unofficial channels.

“Our local community and our producers are so amazing,” says Brooksby. “People know that if they drop off a bag of produce from their garden that it will be actually used and that’s really great. Then we have Jason down the road who farms organic fruit and vegetables, and our pork and lamb and milk is all local too.”

Two years in and the living is easy in Learmonth. The year 2020 is promising big things, however, with 321 Cider planning to take over the disused school building across the road for its new cider-making operations; plus there’s Brooksby and Penhall’s plan for a Learmonth Folk & Cider Festival, a celebration on the farm with a mooted date of June 13.

“The whole idea is to get Learmonth back on the map,” says Brooksby. “There’s an emerging artists’ community and a great feel to the place. It’s just going to grow.”