Hailing from Crescent Head on the NSW North Coast and completing his apprenticeship in Bangalow back in 2012, some of Chef Dylan Cashman’s favourite food memories are walking into a little hole in the wall in a different country where the owners sit you down and nourish you with locally sourced, delicious food. No menus, just passionate people serving what they love to cook. Dylan aims to capture that feeling and memory with The Blue Door in Bellingen. Serving an ever-changing 7 course tasting menu based on local, ethical and sustainably sourced produce.

Pre-Covid, Dylan spent 2.5 years working in some of the best Michelin starred kitchens in Europe & found himself increasingly frustrated watching Chefs trying to make a tomato taste like a tomato when they were out of season and kept thinking “Change the Menu!” but apparently that was always “too hard”. Add to that the insane amount of food waste he witnessed and he knew one day he would create a restaurant that spoke of the seasons & gave back to the community.

When he got back to Australia, a twist of fate lead to Dylan meeting Wine Lover, Angelica Nohra.

Together, they created the Blue Door Surry Hills, combining their love of local food and wine. After 5 years, they decided to close to get even closer to source and settled on Bellingen, NSW as it and the Mid-North Coast of NSW is such an inspiring food bowl with so many people doing what Chef Dylan considers the right thing by our environment and the animals.

The restaurant is driven by provenance with a menu that sees Dylan only serve protein from farmers he’s personally visited to assure their ethics and farming practices are contributing to improving the environment and our health. The menu changes weekly to reflect what he is sent from the farmers to ensure there is no pressure put on supply chains. With a philosophy of eat less, eat better, Dylan shows how much flavour and nutrients we can consume by eating food direct from these kind of farmers, so we can eat less but feel more nourished.

To accompany the heavily producer focused food offering Angelica has put together a wine list that features only NSW wine by the glass, with the whole list comprising of about 98% NSW Wine.

This restaurant is built on the inspiration we draw from our farmers and our history and we look forward to welcoming you through The Blue Door.