New Warrnambool restaurant on the menu with a touch of history and modern twist

Horsham couple Nicole and Hugh Goldson, and their two young children, are relocating to Warrnambool and are hoping to open their new eatery early in the new year and bring something new to the city.

A planning application is currently before council.

The new restaurant on Timor Street will be called Lot 17, which pays homage to the history of the site.

"When it was first sold back in the 1850s, this was allotment 17. It's just a take back to what it was," Ms Goldson said.

"The man that purchased the block was a mayor of Warrnambool back in the day."

She said she had contacted the Warrnambool and District Historical Society about the history of the property, which was once a saddlery and then a general store.

At the rear of the property there is a cottage the couple will renovate to use as a holiday rental which will be called Fenton Cottage after the original owner - mayor Michael Fenton.

It will be a "homecoming" for Ms Goldson, who was born here but left when she was seven.

Her parents owned Dinos Pizza Parlour on Liebig Street in the 1980s. While on a holiday to Warrnambool recently, she said the couple realised there was nothing here like what they were doing in Horsham and decided to make the seachange.

"Everyone has had a rough couple of years, we decided to give our kids an opportunity where if you've had a bad day you can go and look at the ocean," she said.

On that family trip, while her husband was out running, he came across the shop and, after inquiring, found it was for sale.

The couple has run a restaurant in Horsham for a number of years after her husband - who grew up in Kenya in East Africa - moved to Australia from Britain.

"We met in a very small mining town in central Queensland and we travelled around Australia after we were married," Ms Goldson said.

She said the restaurant, which will seat almost 100 people, would offer modern food in what she called a "social dining" experience. "It's designed to share."

Ms Goldson said their menu was sometimes mistaken for tapas. "Ours is just designed to share different-sized plates," she said.

"We did that so you can have a taste of the menu because there's nothing worse than getting your food and thinking 'I should have ordered that'.

"It's bringing good food back to basics. I think sometimes food has got so over complicated."

She said her husband was a chef and they would focus on "good food done well".

IN OTHER NEWS

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content:

Now just one tap with our new app: Digital subscribers now have the convenience of faster news, right at your fingertips with The Standard:

Have you signed up to The Standard's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in the south-west.