There’s a certain romance to the creation story of new restaurant Blume. As the pandemic buffets the country’s dining scene, a head chef leaves behind his gig at an acclaimed eatery in inner-Brisbane and moves with his young family an hour’s drive away to the rural embrace of Boonah in the Scenic Rim. There, in a town of 2,500 where you could buy a tractor, or fruit and vegetables grown in the fertile surrounds, but not until now, a degustation dining experience, he takes over a former dental surgery, and with a menu crafted from mostly local produce
including some plucked from his aunt’s garden a couple of doors up the road, he opens three days a week. It’s a tree-change, a lifestyle overhaul and maybe an audacious bid to build a reputation as a small, outside-the-box destination restaurant perhaps in the vein of 22-seat stunner Fleet in Brunswick Heads.

Brisbane-born chef Jack Stuart, who worked in the UK before three years as head chef at Congress Wine in Melbourne, returned home to South Brisbane’s innovative Gauge for a year before heading for the hills and opening just
before Christmas last year.

Blume, a nod to Boonah’s original name of Blumbergville, is just off the town’s main street in an historic building with white pressed metal covering the walls as well as the ceiling and the voluminous recessed skylight. Timber floors, white curtains shrouding the front windows and bowls of vibrant flowers on each of the bare wooden tables set with linen napkins and handcrafted earthenware crockery, complete the restrained but appealing picture.

The set, multi-course menu is $85pp, with a couple of add-on options. From the first sip of a small bowl of iced consommé of tomato and lemon verbena with gaspingly fresh basil leaves it’s game on, the dish revealing skill and a serious intent with stunning, intensely distilled flavours. Chunks of “coal oil” zucchini and spelt cannoli filled with a savoury custard and accented with pecorino from local supplier Towri Sheep Cheeses are similarly noteworthy.

It’s a 20-seat establishment, which means Stuart and his kitchen offsider can deliver and explain courses themselves, with another cheerful, low-key member of staff to clear and take care of drinks from the zippy two-page global list that includes Scenic Rim Witches Falls sauvignon blanc or barroca or, perhaps,
a Domaine Gerard Tremblay Chablis or a Lombardy nebbiolo.

Thin strips of kingfish pastrami recline over a mound of lightly spiced devilled eggs, both of which marry perfectly with thick slices of superb housemade sourdough with butter made from cream from nearby Tommerup’s Dairy
Farm, which are delivered at the same time. White bread “sangas” of muscularly
flavoured mutton enlivened with a smear of black garlic mayo (a menu add-on at $12 each) are worth the diversion before we’re back to the main menu and a lovely fillet of delicate rainbow trout lightly cloaked in a buttery sauce
speckled with magical pops of finger lime, roe and pearl tapioca.

The most substantial dish is barbecue pork neck that’s been marinated in barley shio koj with a warrigal greens sauce boasting nasturtium capers from Auntie

Jen’s garden and a side of toasted barley studded with sweet corn and pepped up with guanciale (cured pork jowl) beneath a covering of nasturtium leaves. Dishes arrive at well-timed intervals and a fine, high-summer finish comes in the form of wonderfully tart yoghurt ganache topped with strawberry slices, pistachio and a surrounding drift of apple marigold-flavoured granita. Visiting Blume is a wonderful experience, and a destination absolutely worth the drive for city slickers. It’s pretention-free, just a laid-back deep dive into the region’s produce via an harmonious array of clever creations that deliver flavour-wise, dish after dish.

Related restaurant review: Renowned chef Peter Kuruvita has opened a six-in-one dining destination in Noosa