Fodor's Expert Review The Naked Possum

If you don't feel like you've quite hit the heart of backcountry Golden Bay then this place should do it. Here you can sit on the veranda and look across forest-clad hills, or down by the huge outdoor fire if there's a chill about. The well-presented food has a definite wild edge to it—wild game pies, open game meat sandwiches (Thar, anyone?), goat curries, wild pork pies, steak some nights, and a weekend Farmer's Brunch (venison sausage, cured bacon, and much more). Fresh garden salads and local beers and wines are also on the menu. Slow dining is encouraged, not because the service is slow, it isn't, but so you can soak up the country ambience. There's also a pleasant bushwalk (40-minute return to old gold workings along the start of the Kaituna Track, which continues for eight hours to Westhaven Inlet), plus an on-site tannery and possum products retail shop.