Ballarat Restaurants

This small, attractive yet simple restaurant serves has a combination of Malaysian and Chinese dishes.
I highly recommend the lunch box specials - rice & 1 main meal - same as the dinner menu (minus seafood and some of the meats) but for only Aus $7.50
The price is average for lunch box specials - just about all of Ballarat's approx 12 Chinese restaurants offer this - but Jade Inn seems to have the widest lunch special choices and the one I like the best. I think it's all in the special spicy sauces.

Favorite Dish: I recommend the combination meat dishes (especially if the huge range of choice leaves you unable to decide) My favorite is the combination with mongolian sauce.

As the name suggests, what you get here is pastries. Lots of pastries. Mouth watering pastries.
They are delicious, a flow on from the original in Beechworth with a variety of pies and cakes to tempt even the most sensitive palate.
The Beechworth Bakery Ballarat operates from the iconic 1850s Water Board Building on the corner of Grenville & Lewis streets.
This is a large bakery, seating 200 people, and occupying approximately 400sqm of space. In addition there is plenty of car parking onsite and surrounding the building with great disabled access. Being located in the heart of the CBD also makes the bakery accessible to the many shoppers who frequent the area.

Favorite Dish: Though normally I would mention a pie, here I just love their apple squares. In fact, on the too few occasions when I get to visit a Beechworth outlet, I always grab a couple to take with me. Deeeeelicious.

Bay windows, classical exterior, sumptuous interior to match. This is the sort of place where you'd find the solicitors and barristers.
Obviously you'll be paying more than the local takeaway but, can you afford not to dine here?
This is a boasting-rights place where you can flaunt the fact that you've raised a fork in anger over the Angus.
It seats around 100 or, for conferences, 300 standing.

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Hope Bakery is a traditional bakery located at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat's most famous tourist attraction.

Sovereign Hill is a living museum of an 1850s gold mining town. Costumed actors, horses and traditional shops and eating establishments give the "town" an authentic feel.

Hope Bakery is located in a small stone building on the muddy track known as Main Street, just a couple of minutes walk from the site's entrance and exit.

The interior of the bakery contains little in the way of decoration, with wooden counters and glass fronted displays housing the selection of cakes, pasties, sausage rolls and pies that customers can purchase there. The food is cooked in a traditional wood-fired oven and the serving staff wear costumes that are appropriate to the period.

Favorite Dish: I opted for:

Traditional Cornish Pasty - Cost: 3.80 AUD

A large pasty filled in one half with meat and potato and in the other half with apple sauce. Very tasty!!

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The United States Hotel Bar is a pub and restaurant located at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat's most famous tourist attraction.

Sovereign Hill is a living museum of an 1850s gold mining town, with shops and eating establishments appearing just as they would have done at that time, and actors in period costumes giving the "town" an authentic feel.

Upon entering the United States Hotel Bar from Main Street (a muddy track with horses and costumed actors abound), I was not altogether sure whether it was in fact an operating pub or just an exhibition. The interior is sparsely furnished with wooden stools, a wooden bar and decorations appropriate to the period, while the waitresses can be seen in 1850s style outfits.

I established that it was a "real" bar and took a modern menu from the waitress. You can choose from a selection of beers, wines and soft drinks. I opted for a draught Toohey's New (375ml) at a cost of 3.20 AUD.

In a room adjoining the bar is the United States Hotel dining room where you can choose from a special menu of hearty meals.

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Recently the group of volunteers I work with at Ballarat Tourism and I took a familiarisation tour around Ballarat, and Pipers was one of our stops, to try out their Coffee and have morning tea.
It was a beatiful winter sunny day, almost warm enough to sit out on the decking and look at the lake. The building is quite beautiful, in Edwardian style, and until most recently, was called The Pavillion.

Favorite Dish: We rather enjoyed our coffee and muffins and the service was good.
Pipers is open every day, though I believe not in the evenings, as they also cater for functions.

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Le Cafe, despite what its name suggests, isn't French. Unfortunately we don't have any French cafe or restaurant in Ballarat, even if right near this place we have a bakery called "The French Kitchen" (also not French).
However, Le Cafe does serve a wide range of crepes (including the Aussie hawaiian - cheese, pineapple and ham - which I guess the French would call a Croque Monsieur on a crepe....;-)
It's not over priced (compared to other non-French creperies I've seen, and I rather enjoyed my Hawaiian crepe.
They also have French coffee syrups on hand which you can have in your coffee, and a range of ice creams which appear to be French, so it's a nice spot for a Francophile like myself.

Favorite Dish: I had a Blue Heaven milkshake as it's just about my favourite flavour, wherever I go in Australia.
What's in it? I don't think it's blueberries. It's a pale blue in colour, tasting like a cross between vanilla and something else...but I don't know what else is in the syrup.

As we only had a few minutes to prepare before meeting with the City Council, my co-worker and I decided to jump into a cafe along the way. Assunta's looked inviting, with the promise of a cheap quick bite to eat. I had the chicken caesar salad and a lemon squash, and true to form... it was quick and cheap. All together it was 12 AUD.

Nothing special, but it was right on time and in the right place. Check it out if you are strapped for time!