Review of Berida Hotel 4*

Serendipity — As we were driving from Corowa we were looking for somewhere to stay in the vicinity of Bowral, Mossvale and Mittagong. We’d spent an hour scouring trivago, stayz, wotif with not a sniff for anywhere to stay. Mitta didn’t get a gong, we gave mossvale a miss — this time — and Bowral was the bowl over winner — perhaps it had something to do with Don Bradman. What we didn’t realize was that NSW was already in school holiday mode, with a labour day weekend and the NRL grand-final. We took a victorian punt kick and rang the Bowral information centre who were very helpful and found us no less than three choices amongst which was the Berida hotel — mainly because it had safe parking at the back for our little trailer! We arrived to discover we got the last room in this delightful manor house, originally owned by a medical family and bequeathed to the red cross in the second world war. Since run as a health retreat and now a boutique hotel — indoor swimming pool and spa billiards table and darts, suit of armour, a guest lounge with complimentary Prosecco. We settled in with a 5 course degustation at the adjacent restaurant welcomed by one waiter who called us sugars and another a part time actor who welcomed my Dad jokes — the last course was black chocolate truffles presented in a bowl of charcoal and wafting dry ice — we smiled at each other with squid ink teeth and not even that could wipe the smiles off our faces — the organic french champagne made sure of that. We reminisced about our flake and potato cake dinner at the ‘tigers’ loving fish and chip shop in Euroa.