An 1880s lakefront lodge at Kinloch, an hour from town. The nightly menu runs on wild venison, Cardrona lamb and eggs from the hens outside.
Kinloch Wilderness Retreat sits on the far shore of Lake Whakatipu, an hour's drive from Queenstown out through Glenorchy and around the head of the lake.
The lodge was built in the 1880s by Captain Richard Bryant, an Englishman who came out for the gold after twenty years at sea and had no luck at it; he and his Irish wife Mary Anne turned to hospitality instead. After years of neglect it was bought in 2000 by John and Toni Glover, who restored it, and the old bones are still there.
Non-guests are welcome to eat. Breakfast, lunch, bar snacks and something sweet run through the day. Dinner is a single sitting at 6pm and needs a reservation — the menu changes nightly around what is good that day, with wild red deer from South Island high country stations and DOC land, lamb from the Cardrona valley, and eggs from the free-range hens outside.
It is a long drive for a meal, so most people make a day of it or stay the night.
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