The Boathouse on King Island is a local favourite.Credit:Lee Atkinson
In a place plump with gourmet promise,Lee Atkinson puts her trust in a restaurant with no food.
KING ISLAND'S best restaurant has no food. No chef or waiters,either,or anyone to wash the dishes. But don't let these trifling matters put you off the Boathouse - it's the best spot on the island for a long lunch or candle-lit dinner for two.
It's strictly BYO at the Boathouse,tucked under the shadow of the lighthouse on the southern side of Currie Harbour - BYO drinks and BYO food. Not that sourcing your own food on King Island is a problem. This windswept and sometimes storm-lashed island in the western waters of Bass Strait halfway between Tasmania and Victoria is famous for its gourmet produce. Its melt-in-your-mouth beef and sinfully rich cream and cheeses are a perennial favourite on restaurant menus across the country,as are its crayfish,scallops and oysters when they are in season. With ingredients this good,you don't need to be a Michelin-starred chef to whip up a good meal. All you need to do is crack a few shells,heat up the barbecue,unwrap the cheese and pop a cork.
The Boathouse is the perfect place to do it. There's a barbecue,outdoor tables and chairs and several tables inside the colourful art-filled room with floor-to-ceiling harbour views. Anyone is free to use the space and cooking facilities,as long as you clean up after yourself - and drop a few dollars in the donation box.
The original boathouse was built in 1871 to store the lighthouse keeper's boat. Over the years it's had various reincarnations as a schoolhouse and a place to store munitions during World War II. It was derelict for a quarter of a century before local artist Caroline Kininmonth gave it a makeover,filled it with her vibrant art and transformed it into a community eating and meeting place in the early 1990s. At the time,it was the only waterfront restaurant on the island and it soon became a hit with locals and visitors alike,operating on a user-pays honesty system for 18 years until disaster struck in February 2009,when it was burnt to the ground.
"It wasn't until it was gone that we realised how much we used it,"Kininmonth says over a cup of tea in one of her wacky handmade cups that fill the cupboards in the Boathouse."The locals really missed it. So we rebuilt it. We did it with no money and lots of people helped. You would have done the same,"she says.
The new boathouse opened last August and is just as popular as the old one. It still operates on a BYO,clean-up-after-yourself-and-put-your-money-in-the box basis.
"People really appreciate the honesty system,"Kininmonth says."They pay what they can. People respond to the concept of trust."
King Island is a trusting kind of place. Like the Boathouse,Caroline's art gallery in the main street also operates with an honesty box - if you like the art on the walls,help yourself and leave the $200 asking price in the box. When I hire a car on arrival at the airport,I'm told to leave the keys in the ignition when I drop it off;someone will be around in a day or two to pick up the car. After all,on a 64-kilometre-long and 27-kilometre-wide island with no ferries for vehicles,where are you going to go if you do steal it?