Friday evening in Cairns and The Conservatory is buzzing. Every table full, only a window seat left. And with a little patience — circling like vultures as other patrons drifted away — we managed to sneak into an outside table.
Where on earth would you find a Devonian savant sommelier, a Texan wine waiter with charm in spades, and the best-dressed kitchen staff in the southern hemisphere (yes Sarah, you!). Only here.
The room hums with a particular sort of atmosphere. Civilised but not stiff. Warm but not sloppy. The kind of bar where people actually talk to one another, and where the staff are facilitators, co-conspirators in the shaping of your evening. This place combines a snapshot of modernity twisted with a garnish distilled from black and white movies, Chesterfield sofas and grandfather clocks ride shotgun to smoked wreathed cocktails.
At a nod a natty Shiraz appears. Then a great white from the Clare Valley — not a Riesling but something genuinely dry and palate-pleasing. Probably Vermentino. Maybe a Viognier. Ross did that thing he does: pouring what I wanted, not what I asked for. This is a skill I firmly recommend exploiting. I didn’t catch a label. I didn’t need to. It was what I wanted. Ross is boss.
His knowledge matters all the more because behind him lies a cellar of intimidating scale — hundreds upon hundreds of bottles, a wine list with national recognition. That Ross can draw from such breadth and still land precisely on the glass you wanted makes it look less like service and more like divination.
Upon deciding night would benefit from solid sustenance, the question of food arose. A cheeseboard was suggested. Decisions driven by the ultimate qualifier:
Me: “Where is the Camembert from?”
Texan waiter: “France, sir.”
“Is the correct answer.”
— I’m not entirely convinced it can come from anywhere else.
After glasses recharged accordingly, the cheeseboard arrives. This is a cheeseboard to end all conversation. The cheese was fully room-temperature ripened. The Camembert had collapsed like a soufflé breathing its last. A Gorgonzola was humming a merry ditty about the old country. There was honey too, which made the Gorgonzola sing. Quite literally as it was supper.
Congratulations are due to this establishment on providing enough stuff to spread cheese on. Not the usual failing of too little, the customary meagre rations of hard tack. Not here. Bread. Crackers. Toast. Lavash. Stick things. Even floorboards if required.
Difficult not to recommend. Even if we had to sit on the street. At least the furniture was full-sized — not like drinking bottles of Vang Dalat in kindergarten plastic chairs on the kerbside of a Ho Chi Minh backstreet. Although that’s a story for another day.
In a city where some dining feels geared towards passing tourists, The Conservatory is different: planted, assured, designed for people who care about what’s in the glass and on the board. A place for Cairns locals to claim as their own, and for visitors to discover that the tropics can be as cultured as any southern capital. A window into the profanity of grape. And all the better for it.
The Conservatory is splendid. They know where the cheese is from. They know where the wine is from. Visit. Often. Manners and taste demand it.
— David Leith, Editor
Visit the Conservatory online
