By Marie-Antoinette Issa.
There are very few moments in dining that feel like a reverent pause. When time slows, anticipation crackles in the air and what arrives at the table feels more like a quiet invocation than just a plate of food.
However, that’s the rare alchemy being plated at Berowra Waters Inn this July, where the Australian bush breathes new life into one of the world’s most lauded Nordic menus.
For four nights only, Oslo’s three-Michelin-starred Maaemo takes up residence at the iconic, water-access-only Berowra Waters Inn, helmed by two-hatted Chef Brian Geraghty.
The Maaemo x Berowra Waters Inn Collaboration reunites Brian with Maaemo’s Executive Chef, Jay Boyle (one of only three Australian Chefs running three-Michelin-starred restaurants around the world) - two local lads who met in Sydney more than a decade ago and now find themselves pushing culinary boundaries together once more.
Only this time, the challenge is as ambitious as it is poetic: recreate Maaemo’s intricate, hyper-local Norwegian menu using only ingredients sourced on Australian soil.
"It’s a major and slightly terrifying challenge to recreate these dishes without a single item from the Maaemo pantry,” Jay admits. "It’s also very exciting to elevate them through a purely Australian lens.”
Elevate he does. Langoustine is swapped for smoky marron cradled in silky emu egg yolk. The distinctive tang of Norwegian brown cheese is reimagined using wattle seed and smoked Atherton raspberries. In place of Maaemo’s King crab and hazelnuts, the Hawkesbury yields its own treasure: mud crab in a delicate bath of macadamia milk.
Each ingredient tells a distinctly Australian story - sunrise limes, Davidson plum, cinnamon myrtle, bunya nut, rosella flower - all sourced from small-scale producers like Newcastle Greens and Tinja Farms.
Yet, what emerges is not a collage of Australian ingredients masquerading as Norwegian fare. It is a harmonious translation, where culinary dialects shift but the voice of each dish endures with perfect clarity.
The setting, too, plays its role in the symphony. Glenn Murcutt’s architectural jewel - glass, tin and sandstone - juts quietly from the bush like a whisper, surrounded by the mirrored stillness of the Hawkesbury River.
Guests arrive by boat, seaplane or sheer determination, their reward a 14-course journey priced at $420 (and worth every cent), with all-Australian wine pairings available for those wishing to lean further into terroir.
The menu is meditative: raw Hervey Bay scallops. Warm milk bread and garlic butter. Fish with bacon butter and mushrooms. Lamb shoulder with white garlic and beer. Each course is delivered with hushed precision, a reminder of the discipline and detail that have earned Maaemo its stars - and Berowra Waters Inn its place in the Australian fine dining canon.
There is a special pleasure in the familiar rendered unfamiliar. The whisper of eucalyptus in a broth. The earthiness of bunya nut where you expect crunch. The sweet-savoury tension of pistachio miso folded into a lamb dish that tastes like fire and memory.
This is what happens when two Chefs who understand each other intimately challenge one another with the flavours of home. There is camaraderie here. There is courage.
"This is our second Maaemo x Berowra Waters Inn collaboration in two years,” says Brian. "With this uniquely all-Australian version of the menu, it’s even more special.”
Special feels like an understatement. With just 250 seats available from July 24-27 and a menu that will vanish as quickly as it was conjured, never to be replicated, this is an unmissable epicurean masterpiece.
So, for those lucky enough to sit at the table, it will be remembered in quiet, gleaming flashes: the sharp sweetness of a rosella, the velvet hush of toasted hay ice cream, the soft bite of chestnut flour cakes dusted with cinnamon.
Perhaps, as the last spoon scrapes across the final plate and the bush sighs in the distance, you’ll understand: this was never just a meal. It was a moment. Moments like these - measured not in stars or hats, but in wonder - are the ones we carry with us long after the ferry’s gone.
