Goonoo Goonoo Station's Glasshouse restaurant wins Good Food Guide award for second year running

Located just 20 minutes outside of Tamworth, it was the only restaurant to receive the award in the whole New England North West, and co-owner Simon Haggerty couldn't be prouder of the staff.

"Given the challenges we faced this year with opening and closing, then opening and closing again and being impacted by staff isolation and everything, the kitchen team has done a great job of working through that," he said.

"They've overcome all of those challenges and kept the level of quality the same and retained the same ranking."

Despite it being quite a tumultuous year in terms of employment for most venues, Mr Haggarty said they had kept largely the same team together, including the head chef and sous-chef.

He heaped particular praise on head chef Philip Piper, whose vision and passion has led to the impressive and unique menu.

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"The food we present is best described as modern Australian, but it's based on a lot of native Australian ingredients and locally-sourced product, we have a kitchen garden and grow as much as we can in there," he said.

"And that's been a real passion of our head chef, he's been cooking for a long time, almost 30 years and was lucky enough to work with chefs who had a focus on that sort of thing and that's stayed with him."

While Mr Haggarty said food and staff were the key components to winning the award, he said the atmosphere and location of the restaurant also played a part.

He believes the modern décor matched with rustic exterior and historic sights make Glasshouse at Goonoo Goonoo hard to ignore.

"It's a very impressive building out in the middle of basically nowhere, and when you arrive you're confronted with this very modern glass and steel restaurant sitting right next to an 1870s-built wool store," he said.

"So you've got this juxtaposition of 140-year-old buildings and a five-year-old building sitting on top of a hill looking out over, what is at the moment very green pastures, of Goonoo Goonoo station which is one of the most historic properties in Australian history."

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