Bermagui's Mimosa Wines voted into Australia's top 50 restaurants

Aymeric Grand and his wife Tilly bought the restaurant from her parents, Glenn and Gail Butson, in 2020.

The young couple had been on an extensive world trip before settling down to have children.

The Butsons wanted to sell the business in Murrah, 15 kilometres south of Bermagui.

"I always thought this place had enormous potential," Mr Grand said.

"We have a creek, three neighbours we can't see and are surrounded by national parks."

The couple left their jobs in Sydney to run the business.

Mr Grand now has six full-time staff, including himself, as he works towards his vision for a gastronomic destination in the bush.

He has exceptional staff alongside him in head chef Jan Semmelhack and sous chef Fred Jones.

"Jan was backpacking here and got stuck with the Black Summer bushfires.while Fred was travelling around Australia looking for his next gig."

Mr and Mrs Butson bought the 230-acre property in 1978.

They moved there from Melbourne with three children in the early 1980s after the house was built.

"They started the vineyard from nothing in 1999."

At its peak, the seven-acre vineyard produced 15,000 bottles of wine a year.

They built and opened the restaurant in 2008 when the remote location was still on a dirt road.

They did all this without a background in hospitality.

"It is incredible,' Mr Grand said.

"The failure rate of new businesses, let alone hospitality businesses, is so high.

"All credit to them for the vision."

The vineyard has fallen into decline, partly due to poor soil and disease.

The last harvest was in 2018.

Mr Grand has replanted vines to make the stunning location even more beautiful "but we are a gastronomic restaurant before anything else".

It is all about the full sensory experience - flavour, texture, plating, music and the breathtaking view.

Mr Grand aspires that his very small, family-owned business "becomes the best restaurant on the coast south of Sydney".

It offers a two- or three-course lunch and a six-course set dinner.

The restaurant sources as much produce as possible locally, offers Australian and New Zealand wines, mostly organic, and will begin highlighting Canberra wines.

Diners can book accommodation in one of the property's two cottages and Mr Grand is exploring glamping tents.

OpenTable's Top 50 Restaurants in Australia for 2023 list is generated from over 110,000 OpenTable diner reviews and dining metrics from September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2023.

Restaurants with a minimum threshold of diner reviews were considered and evaluated by a compilation of unique data points, including diner ratings, the percentage of five-star reviews, the number of alerts set, the percentage of reservations made in advance and direct searches.

Metrics were weighted to comprise an overall score, used to rank the list.

The resulting list appears A-Z, not in ranked order.