The massive restoration of a Victorian seaside icon is complete

September 19, 2026 — 5:00amThe Bellarine Peninsula was that place Victorians came for the ferry ride from Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula across the bay, ate fish and chips, and then went home – a place of beach shacks, caravan parks and day trips.The restored and revived Queenscliff Hotel.Increasingly, this stretch of Victoria’s south-west is being reshaped as somewhere more enticing – a place to eat well, check into somewhere considered, and make a weekend of it.Cellar doors, provedores and farm gates now form part of a mapped-out trail, while dining has lifted.The reopening of one of the region’s most prominent historic buildings is another milestone in that transformation.The Queenscliff Hotel, a landmark on the seaside town’s main street since 1888, has reopened after a seven-year closure and a three-year restoration. With its original design by the influential Melbourne firm Reed, Henderson & Smart – the architects behind icons such as the Royal Exhibition Building – the hotel is a confident expression of late-Victorian seaside ambition.Sign up for the Traveller newsletterThe latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.Suites acknowledge the hotel’s history.Its turreted tower, ornate ironwork and decorative detailing still anchor Queenscliff’s heritage streetscape, a reminder of the town’s past as a fashionable coastal retreat.The recent restoration has focused on preserving that character rather than reinventing it.It has been driven by owners Rob and Tammy Charter, who acquired the dilapidated property in 2022, their interest in heritage architecture, family ties to the Bellarine and hospitality experience underpinning the project.Delivered by Geelong builder Matt Wilson of Built by Wilson, in consultation with Heritage Victoria and the Borough of Queenscliffe, with architecture and interiors by Melbourne’s Molecule Studio and landscaping by InStyle Gardens, the project drew on local trades and heritage specialists throughout.Inside the hotel restaurant.Inside, original features sit alongside a more contemporary sensibility, reworked into a boutique hotel of 12 suites that is considered without losing its sense of history.It is the kind of place designed not simply for a night’s stopover, but as a destination in itself, and that intention is clearest in the return of Miettas.For many Victorians, the name carries weight. Mietta’s, founded by Mietta O’Donnell, was for decades one of Melbourne’s most storied restaurants – as much a cultural institution as a dining room, known for drawing together artists, musicians and a loyal dining public.In its name, the restaurant, Miettas, gives recognition to a champion of fine dining in Victoria.Its presence here is not incidental. In 1978, O’Donnell was part of the ownership group that revived the Queenscliff Hotel, bringing her restaurant to the building.The new iteration draws directly on that history, reintroducing a name that once formed part of the hotel’s identity.The restaurant leans towards Italian fine dining, with a focus on seasonality and Bellarine produce. The hotel also features a more casual all-day sibling restaurant, The Conservatory, that’s already firing on all cylinders.There is a more cohesive and confident food scene emerging across the peninsula. The Bellarine Taste Trail links more than 40 producers, wineries and provedores, stretching from Portarlington through Drysdale and Ocean Grove to Queenscliff, encouraging visitors to move through the region with food as the inspiration.In Portarlington, long known for its mussels, the annual mussel festival has helped cement the town’s reputation as a seafood hub, while nearby farm gates and orchards supply everything from olives to berries. Around Drysdale and Curlewis, cellar doors such as Jack Rabbit and Leura Park Estate pair bay views with increasingly polished dining.In Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove, a new wave of venues balances coastal ease with a focus on local sourcing. Wineries are no longer just stops along the way, but places to settle in for lunch.And in Queenscliff itself, long defined by pubs and passing trade, the offering is evolving, with hospitality that encourages visitors to stay – well beyond the ferry timetable.Julietta Jameson is a freelance travel writer who would rather be in Rome, but her hometown Melbourne is a happy compromise.Connect via email.From our partners