Humans have used fire in their rituals since the dawn of our species. That element has such primal power to influence us, to create focus, intention and to help us succeed. When Homage restaurant was born the name had precise meaning and purpose. We were paying Homage to the land, the people and the produce.
Fire is a force of destruction, purification and creation. To us, it has been all three. The destruction phase was devastating. An event that no one saw coming, causing trauma, tears and heartbreak for the loss of a building, which to most of us, was more like family than a structure. But the destruction phase was short lived.
The fire of April 2018 started in the roof above the dining room, and the cause will likely never be known. The ferocious fire of 99 years ago that claimed the original homestead took all of the homestead but the kitchen was saved. Alfred Cotton shot holes in the water tank which ultimately saved it. The kitchen couldn’t be stopped then, and it won’t be stopped now.
Purification and creation were quickly embraced. With list after list of items to be purchased to enable us to create the same experience, it soon became apparent that what we had, still standing, would allow us not only to recreate the Homage experience, but to enhance it and make it purer.
Less than three months after the blaze, Spicers Hidden Vale was re-opened and Homage was re-imagined. The rebuilding of the homestead will be completed by late 2019 in the same heritage style.
We still had all the key components that Homage was based around – the market garden, the smokehouse, the coal pits and rotisserie, the preserving room, the historic animal nursery and incredible barn which, over the years, had become a focal point and for now is the home of Homage restaurant.
