I’ve always had a soft spot for Queenscliff. Every year, we make our pilgrimage down for the Queenscliff Music Festival, pitch our tent on the footy oval, and live very happily for a few days on music, festival food and that particular seaside feeling the town does so well. So to arrive this time and stay at the restored Queenscliff Hotel, in the glorious Stone Pine Suite, with its enormous bath and all that quiet, old-world luxury, felt slightly ridiculous in the best possible way. I felt like a queen. The chat itself was just as lovely. I sat down with owners Tammy and Rob Charter, and executive chef Josh Smith, and very quickly it felt like a conversation with friends. There was such warmth between them, and such care in the way they talked about the hotel, the town, the food and the people around them. It was wholesome in the best sense of the word: generous, funny, thoughtful and full of heart.