Why Terrigal might be NSW’s most underrated luxury escape

Eat & Drink

Decadent degustations, golden hour cheeseboards, and five-star suites with ocean views – this former Schoolies haunt is suddenly all grown up.

The last time I was in Terrigal was Schoolies Week, 1983. Back then it was Tooheys New and noisy nights at The Florida Hotel. Today, the Norfolk pines still line the beach – a little older and rougher – and the sand is still that same buttery yellow, but it’s changed, especially from the vantage of a fifth-floor verandah sipping room-service cocktails.

We’d come up from Sydney in a Turo 2019 Porsche Cayenne. The plan was to stretch its legs on the bends. Instead, we sat in six-car-pile-up traffic for most of the M1 making us late for lunch.

Still, the beauty of the Porsche [Turo being the Airbnb of fancy cars] was that when we handed the keys to the valet parking, we didn’t feel quite so self-conscious as if we had rocked up in my messy old Hyundai.

The Florida Hotel is long gone. In its place, the Crowne Plaza Terrigal Pacific stands tall, offering ocean views, king suites, and, today, a six-course degustation lunch at Meribella that would’ve been unthinkable in ’83.

Now, I’m sitting at a table looking out on those old dame Pines, eating aged duck breast with figs and shallots, and Wagyu beef fillet with a sensational mushroom ragu, paired with a 2020 Trediberri Barolo from Piedmont.

Crowne Plaza Terrigal
Phase 1 of the Crowne Plaza Terrigal degustation menu. | Image: Katie Mann

It’s all part of process of trying to make the NSW Central Coast more of a luxe destination. And it’s working for me. The lunch starts with a playful mix of textures – seared scallop with parsnip and pickled cucumber, a fresh oyster dressed with gin and tonic, and a hit of Wagyu tartare, matched with a NV Barringwood Cuvée Méthode Traditionelle from Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.

“A lot of these degustation menus are pretty small, but we like to send you away fully stuffed,” explains our host Haley, bright, bubbly and unmistakably a Central Coast local, but who displays an impressive depth of wine knowledge.

Crowne Plaza Terrigal
The aged duck breast with figs and shallots. | Image: Katie Mann

For the third course – roasted barramundi with grilled greens and fennel – the glasses change shape. When Haley pours the 2023 Ciel Buerre Blanc Chardonnay—the private label of head chef Joshua Mason – she pauses to explain why the glass is different. “It’s a proper Chardonnay glass,” she says, cradling it like a small trophy. “It’s designed so the wine hits the back of your mouth differently to the taller, thinner Riesling glass.”

Crowne Plaza Terrigal
Meribella restaurant

It sounds like something that could come across as snooty, but somehow it doesn’t. Haley makes it conversational, like she’s telling you where the best local walk is – which she later does. She knows her stuff. And you trust her.

And indeed, it’s hard to tell if the Chardonnay does hit the back of ones mouth differently, but it’s a wine so clean it practically flosses your teeth.

By the time dessert arrives—a chocolate crémeux with raspberry cream and sorbet, paired with a sticky Valdespino Yellow Label Pedro Ximénez—the room has softened into that mellow, post-long-lunch lull where no one’s in a rush.

Crowne Plaza Terrigal
Crowne Plaza Terrigal

Outside, the Pacific glints under the winter sun, and I catch myself thinking: Terrigal used to be a place you went to get away with things. Now it’s somewhere you go to get away from things.

The next day we go to the new Casamigos Cabana experience at the Terrigal Beach House.

A luxuriant seafood platter – all oysters, lobster tails and prawns, paired with a margarita tasting board inspired by George Clooney’s Casamigos tequila. Six shots in a rainbow of colour —no wristbands or schoolies queues in sight.

Crowne Plaza Terrigal
Crowne Plaza Terrigal

The Crowne Plaza did a Coco Republic refurb across its fifth floor, where they’ve attracted everybody from a prime minister to actors and models,  according to “director of VIP services” Vanessa Lorking, who runs what they call the Pacific Club to inundate us with valet treatment, in-room cocktails and the full catastrophe of service. “The suites on level five – that’s my baby – I make sure it’s perfect from before they arrive to after they leave.

“The Central Coast appeals as it is so close to Sydney.  We have everyone from your regular tourists and families right up to the Prime Minister stay with us.”

Attempting to alleviate the feeling of perpetual stuffedness, we’d jogged, winter swum and saunaed though our stay, but they kept coming back at us. The Meribella High Tea was irresistible, with savoury starters at the bottom: lobster goujons with hollandaise; smoked salmon and dill cream cheese sandwiches; a wagyu sausage roll with tomato relish, rising up the three-decked platter to tarts, macarons and cake, washed down with a rose chai. We waddled away.

Back upstairs, just when we thought the day was done, Jenna arrived at our door with the In-Room Golden Hour cheeseboard – part of Meribella’s new Golden Hour menu, designed for sunset in comfort of our suite with it’s 180 degree views along the coast and back to the setting sun. A trio of wines – Amber Lane, Brokenwood, and Little Creek—accompanied a spread of soft rind, sharp cheddar, and honeycomb, all sourced from regional artisans.

Crowne Plaza Terrigal
High tea at Meribella restaurant, Crowne Plaza Terrigal

As we sit on the balcony, an osprey lands on a crane just metres away, silhouetted in the stunning pink-clouded sunset. It proceeds to devour its own seafood dinner.

It seems only fair.

We leave in the Turo Porsche, at last able to open up on some backroad bends, burdened only by a few extra kilos of gastronomic memories.

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