Burrowed deep into the limestone of a surrounding hill was a tunnel filled with mushrooms, making Ellen Street quite possibly the only restaurant in Australia with its own dedicated mushroom farm.

It was something of a discovery for winery owner Mark Maxwell when he bought the vineyard in the 1980s. A little research revealed the 50m tunnel had been dug in 1916 in order to grow mushrooms, before being abandoned. It was later used by Maxwell for subterranean dinners until he decided two years ago to restore it to its original use.

Now there’s a long elevated rack supporting sacks of different kinds of mushrooms – including crunchy, fragrant portobellos, which Maxwell says are the easiest to grow. There are clear, perforated bags with king brown mushrooms poking through the holes and, most fascinating of all, logs of “substrate” on which oyster and shiitake mushrooms perch.

Twice-cooked pork belly with portobello mushrooms, baby carrots, carrot puree and mushroom dust. Photo: supplied

Maxwell says the logs are made of rolled and compressed oak shavings mixed with sterilised chaff – which explains the witch’s brew pot simmering in the winery, filled with chaff and nutrients.

The logs are inoculated with the appropriate spores and held under water for two hours, simulating a heavy tropical rainstorm, and out pop the shiitakes – which, within hours, have joined crisp-skinned, twice-cooked pork belly on a plate with baby carrots, carrot puree and mushroom dust in one of Lehmann’s creations (pictured above).

One of Lehmann’s favourite food and wine matches, he says, is freshly harvested mushrooms from the cave, braised and served on toasted brioche with a glass of Maxwell Old Vine Grenache. “Rustic and simple but delicious produce working together beautifully”.

Ellen Street restaurant chef Fabian Lehmann. Photo: supplied