Our Reviews

Mojo’s delivers cosy and hospitable dining in the country, with bare wooden tables, linen napery and an open fire for winter. Excellent house-baked ciabatta is served with olive oil and warmed olives in caramelized balsamic vinegar. Crab and fennel ravioli, made from fresh silky pasta and plump with sweet crabmeat, sit atop a bed of creamy spinach with a caper beurre noisette – the vegetarian version works just as well with a generous heap of charred thin asparagus spears replacing the ravioli. A thick fillet of rare beef is well scorched on the outside, tender and warm inside, with accompanying horseradish mash competent. Adam ultimate Eggs Benedict could well be the quintessential Sunday brunch fare.

2007: Ros and Adam are a smart pair. After doing the hard yards in Cessnock, they found a cosy restaurant in the bush with a sunny square of courtyard, indulged Ros’s love of bright colours and pieced together a small but very attractive menu for daily dining. The wine list is almost 100% Hunter and the restaurant is so family friendly (they have three kids) they’ll feed anyone under two for free! The attention to detail on the plate is terrific, right down to the superbly fresh house-made bread. If you vegetarian you get your own menu, and for every dish there is a suggested wine by the glass. Don’t miss the dessert plate. Each tiny taste – from the house-made ice-cream balls rolled in honeycomb and macadamia to one of the best-ever molten chocolate puddings – will bring back your mojo, no worries.

2006:  Sitting on the back patio as the sun washes over the green fields, you feel as if you’re at a friend’s house. Service is as warm as the colours adorning the walls of this brightly painted cottage, with its oversized fireplace and glass doors leading to the patio and beyond. Happily, the food is as vibrant as the surrounds, drawing effortlessly on European, Asian and North African influences. Although there are bold flavours in grilled sardines on slow-roasted tomato sauce, with parmesan crisp, they are blended with real finesse. Ditto the lamb rump with harissa-scented chickpeas, roast pumpkin and spinach, which really shows up the skills of  husband and wife team, Ros and Adam Baldwin. Desserts are especially tempting, and the raspberry jelly in the passionfruit and meringue trifle is better than anything you had as a kid – passionfruit curd turns it into trifle heaven.

2005:   In a classic Australian bushland setting, the colourful, groovily modern interior includes a huge open fireplace, but on a perfect day dining alfresco in the paved  courtyard is hard to beat. Happy, attentive, black clad staff obviously enjoy their work and kitchen duo Adam and Ros Baldwin offer food as colourful, fresh and imaginative as their surrounds. Beef carpaccio on a handsomely presented salad of tender beetroot, rocket, pine nuts and parmesan can only be faulted for its generosity. Finally, satisfy your sweet tooth with the sublime tangy lemon tart made with heavenly pastry.