The Cosmopolitan Hotel Trentham – A Wine Lover’s Country Pub Heaven
I was kindly invited for a meal at The Cosmopolitan Hotel Trentham and we had such a wonderful lunch and time, that I just had to pop up a blog post all about it.
Do excuse the average photos and videos, Mr Spittoon and I were attempting to control our nearly 2 and 4 year olds at the time. This is the first invitation as a blogger I have accepted and brought the family too, so I was a little nervous. I mean I do love my kids, but toddlers!! IYKYK.
Firstly, you may be like I was when I first heard about Trentham, and are like, where is that? Well my wine friends, Trentham is in the Macedon Ranges wine region. It is a mere 1 hour drive north from Melbourne CBD, or only 50 minutes by train. We travelled from the Bellarine Peninsula, which was a 2 hour drive.
As we were bringing the kids (where are those grandparents when you need them right!) we thought we’d make a weekend of it and book some accommodation for a couple of nights. I am so happy we did as it is a beautiful area with some absolutely amazing food and wine.
Plus before I delve further, everyone we met was so friendly and welcoming. Trentham definitely has that wonderful country charm, that is for sure.
Which brings me to The Cosmopolitan Hotel, or let’s just call it the Cosmo going forward hey?
The restaurant, bar and beer garden
From the outside, the Cosmo definitely has that historic Aussie country pub vibe with its weatherboard verandah and old bar sign window. Originally built in 1866, the Cosmo has been through tough times having endured a fire in 2005 which resulted in a re-build in 2009.
In fact, one of my favourite spaces in the pub is the glorious The Cellar & Store, which is this beautifully elegant lounge and wine store and is in fact the last remaining original room, saved from the fire. It was also once the Trentham General Store.
The main dining area in the pub is on a split level and it is both super casual and comfy yet it has such an elegance to it at the same time. At the time I visited they had some beautiful local landscape artwork by local Newbury artists Julie McKenzie and Malcolm King.
I also liked the wall of wine which I spent a while perusing.
Outside the main bar and dining room you find a ‘secret garden’ type of courtyard / beer garden with nice big draping green trees. After walking through the Cosmo gardens I can see why it is a popular wedding venue. To top off the beautiful historic gardens the original stables are also still in place and these have now been converted into a stunning bar and dining area equipped with wood fires and black slate floors.
Is it too soon to want to get re-married?!
The wine menu
Okay so let’s move on to both yours and my favourite part of a pub – the wine menu! But don’t fret my fellow wine-ophile, this is not a pub wine menu like most of the Aussie pubs (would you like the red or white?) – you can tell someone who truly loves a good wine has put the Cosmo wine menu together.
I love drinking local wherever I am, it’s safe to say that it definitely makes my palate sing for joy when I see a menu focusing on local wines. The Cosmo wine menu is very focused on promoting its Macedon Ranges wines which is fantastic.
We tried a few wines from the wine by the glass menu where glasses ranged from $13.
I enjoyed everything we tried which included a delicious selection in my opinion:
- Midhill Blanc de Blancs
- Granite Hills Gruner Veltliner
- Silent Way Riesling
- Athletes of wine ‘Altol Altol!’ Rosato
- Athletes of wine ‘Vino Athletico!’ Pinot Noir
And we were also lucky enough to sneak a glass of the chilled red off the wine by the bottle menu – Zig Zag ‘Folk’ Shiraz.
Alongside the Macedon Ranges wines, there were also a few from the King Valley, Sunbury, Kilmore, Bendigo, Heathcote and Pyrenees, so all very Victorian focused, which is cool.
I would love to go back sans-kids and try a few more in The Cellar & Store room!
The food menu
I really liked the food menu. You have your pub classics like fish’n’chips, burgers and schnitzels but then you also have some other mains like Thai red curry, spinach and ricotta gnocchi and Vietnamese spiced chicken.
I wanted to try so much, but unfortunately, my stomach didn’t make it past the Starter and Share section of the menu.. haha.
We ended up ordering the Chef’s Regional Tasting Plate which was full of local charcuterie (seriously some of the best chorizo, prosciutto and salami of my life!), blue cheese, olives (these reminded me of the fresh ones we had in Italy… so bloody tasty), bread, a yummy yam dip and pickled veggies which Mr. Spittoon absolutely adored as they had a delish spice to them. A great platter for $45.
We then followed this up with the Korean Fried Chicken and Asian Slaw alongside the Side Salad – which was anything but a sidekick to the meal. This baby cos, radicchio, pear, goat’s cheese and walnut salad was to die for! These two dishes went so well with our chilled Shiraz and Pinot too.
I was soooo keen to try the chocolate spring rolls and salted caramel ice cream for dessert, I mean look at this:
But alas, I just didn’t have the room!
The kids loved their fish’n’chips and chicken tenders plus the ice-creams were so adorable. Safe to say the kids were in utter heaven with their meals. Our nearly 4 year old doesn’t nap anymore, but it’s safe to say our nearly 2 year old had a brilliant 2.5 hour food coma nap afterwards.. haha.
Would I go back to The Cosmopolitan Hotel Trentham?
I loooooved it! And you know what, the great food and wine was simply the cherry on top. Not only is this beautiful wine lovers pub a stunner, but the people are seriously some of the friendliest, nicest people we have come across. Maybe they took pity on our frazzled travelling with two toddlers vibe, but hey, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back in a heartbeat.
A massive thank you again to the team at The Cosmopolitan Hotel Trentham and to Aisling Enterprises for this experience for me and the fam bam.