When the Farmhouse restaurant at Pialligo Estate opens on Friday night it'll be one more step in John Russell and Rowan Brennan's vision of a rural idyll close to the heart of Canberra.
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The rustic-style restaurant features patios with big fireplaces, and outdoor private dining pavilions amid formal gardens created by acclaimed landscape designer Paul Bangay.
There are sweeping views from the Brindabellas to Parliament House to the Telstra Tower.
The restaurant is surrounded by vegetable market gardens, orchards filled with ornamental fruit trees and a vineyard - all of which produce food for a seasonal menu created by head chef Brendan Walsh and culinary director Jan Gundlach.
Mr Russell and Mr Brennan, friends and business partners, bought the lush property, complete with gardens and an old winery, several years ago and each intended to build a house on the block.
"We both recognised this to be probably the best block of dirt certainly in Pialligo and if not Pialligo then in Canberra," Mr Brennan said.
"So we said ... we'll buy it together and then we'll both have our houses here and we can do our vegie gardens and barbecues."
They threw parties in the winery and held barbecues on the property "And all our friends kept raving about how good it was ... They said 'really what a shame that the public wasn't able to get in'. We've got all these olive groves and these fresh gardens and the winery."
So they decided to open the property to the public but they wanted to do it right.
The result was Pialligo Farm Smokehouse, which picked up gold medals and awards for its smallgoods, culminating in being named Australia's Best Bacon in 2014, and now the Farmhouse restaurant that is booked out for Valentine's Day.
Mr Walsh has worked at the three-Michelin-starred restaurant Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester and at Mr Gundlach's former restaurant Senso in Fyshwick. He said he would determine the menu every morning by going down to the gardens to see what was good.
The restaurant will feature formal dining in the main building with a separate kitchen in the pavilions for casual lunches and brunches. Details are meticulous down to gleaming copper pipes, wrought iron chandeliers and cutlery with a hint of gold.
Mr Brennan, a former Canberra Raiders player turned real estate director, said everything had been done "overboard" to create something special.
"It was never to make money here, it was always a lifestyle pure and simple," he said.
"John and I are going to live here for the next 30 years, we hope, and we treat it as our home and every time we come home we want to see everything is done right."
Plans are also afoot for a 7-8 acre botanical gardens that will play host to weddings and picnics.
