There is a particular kind of meal that you carry with you long after the plates are cleared. Not just the memory of flavours, but the feeling of having truly arrived somewhere – unhurried, present, and full in the deepest sense of the word. Dinner at The Woodshed at Kin Kin Hotel is that meal.
In the tiny hinterland town of Kin Kin, about 40 minutes’ winding drive from Noosa, The Woodshed opened in August 2025 inside a beautifully restored old shed – its original tin roof kept intact, its bones reimagined by co-owner and interior designer Ellie Ezrine of Squid Ink Interiors. Exposed beams, wood-panelled walls and ceramic wall lights – each one handcrafted by local potter Prue Macfarlane – set a mood that is rustic and incredibly stylish.
The lighting is low, the velvet tub chairs feel like a warm hug, and generous circular banquettes invite you to settle in for the long, lovely evening ahead. At the centre of it all sits an open kitchen where the fire is the undeniable star.
At its helm is Head Chef Oscar Holgado, who has worked in Michelin-starred kitchens including Coombeshead Farm in Cornwall, UK – a guesthouse, working farm and restaurant that has long been a benchmark for thoughtful, produce-led hospitality. Here at The Woodshed, he has created his parallel: a seven-course degustation built almost entirely from what grows, swims and is made within reach.
The bread is baked across the road, the cultured butter and young brie is his own, and the vegetables come from the pesticide-free market garden across the road. Tonight, wasabi leaf appears on the menu, grown from a single stalk Oscar planted that simply took off. The yabbies were brought in by a local couple who are regulars at the pub. Nothing on the plate feels like an accident, and everything on it feels like a story worth hearing.
What makes the experience genuinely extraordinary is the intimacy Oscar has engineered into the room. Only ten tables, a maximum of forty guests, and a deliberate negative space between them – tables built for eight seating only two or four – means the room breathes in a way that fine dining rarely allows. A two-metre open entry to the kitchen is an invitation rather than a boundary, with stools running along its edge for those who want to lean in a little closer. “We want people to feel comfortable coming over and having a look,” he explains.
Our sommelier, Baptiste, extends this spirit of ease further still: rather than presenting a wine list, he offers options by the glass for each course (a complete wine pairing is also available) – standouts among them a petit chablis from his native Normandy and a Yarra Valley nebbiolo by Mac Forbes – turning each pairing into a gentle conversation and study in viticulture.
“We say we’re more of a restaurant with rooms than a hotel,” staffer Riley tells us at check-in, and from the moment you step inside, that philosophy shapes everything. The nine rooms upstairs are reserved exclusively for Woodshed guests, with doors that open onto a wide verandah, waffle-weave robes and slippers waiting, and communal bathrooms finished with unexpected style and heated floors. Sleep comes easily up here, satiated and swaddled in quality linens.
In the morning, breakfast is served back in the Woodshed: garlic toum on toast with broccoli and poached eggs, a housemade beef and jalapeño sausage, First Batch coffee from Noosa, and pastries so good the memory stays on the tongue all day. Throughout the service, Oscar wanders out from the kitchen to chat – about the garden, the suppliers, the wasabi that simply refused to stop growing. It is that kind of place. One where the chef knows your name by morning, and where you realise, somewhere between the first cocktail and the last pastry, that you’re in absolutely no hurry to leave.
This is an extract from our Noosa Unhurried guide – download your free copy here.