Mrs Finch is run by two Davids, one of us in the kitchen, and one of us hosting out front. As a farm to table chop house, our mission is to champion local growers and farmers, and showcase the best produce from the Victorian Goldfields region and surrounds.
Chef David started his apprenticeship at fifteen under Raymond Blanc in the Michelin starred Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, and has been cooking for thirty three years since. More recently he was Executive Chef at The Glass House in Hobart, curating the freshest seafood from the surrounding Tasmanian waters, followed by over three years as Head Chef at Beverly Rooftop South Yarra, cooking over live fire with Southern Californian flavour.
Small David (front of house) has extensive experience in guest experience across a range of industries, including design-focussed retail and hospitality brands in London and Paris. He runs the room at Mrs Finch with flair, attention, and warmth.
David & David have been partners in life for nearly twenty years, and now partners in business too. Starting a restaurant together was something they'd talked about for decades, and now that it has finally realised, they hope you enjoy Mrs Finch.
Mrs Finch is a revival of the English chop house tradition: simply grilled and roasted cuts, sold by weight, served plainly and generously. It's a considered nod to Chef David's own Northern British heritage, reimagined through a contemporary Australian lens.
We break down ethically farmed animals and sustainably caught seafood in house, nose to tail and root to shoot, using every part and wasting nothing. Much of our produce comes from our own Chop House Farm, where we live, and utilise chemical-free, no dig, regenerative methods. Alongside this, we work with local growers producing the best the region has to offer.
We are a shared plate restaurant, you're welcome to pop in and have as much or as little as you like. For tables of two or more, we also offer a chef's menu: a curated journey through the hyper-local suppliers and producers of the Victorian Goldfields region.
Because our producers work in limited supply, tied to season and period, our menu is constantly changing. Please take our online menu as an indication of what you can expect at Mrs Finch, rather than exactly what you'll be served on the day.
Frances ‘Fanny’ Finch (1815–1863) was a London born woman of African heritage, raised in a foundling hospital, who emigrated to South Australia in 1837 and moved to the Victorian goldfields in the early 1850s. Arriving at Forest Creek near Castlemaine as a single mother of four during the height of the gold rush, she built and ran a well known eating house and lodgings for diggers, regarded by contemporaries as one of the only places on the goldfields offering genuinely respectable food and accommodation. By 1854 she was running a well regarded restaurant in Castlemaine itself, known for her bright dress and forthright personality, unafraid to defend herself publicly.
On 22 January 1856, Fanny Finch and another Castlemaine woman entered the town hall and cast votes in Castlemaine’s first municipal election, exploiting a law that granted the vote to all rate paying ‘persons’ rather than explicitly to men. Their votes were disallowed on the day, and the law was soon tightened to exclude women, yet the act stands as one of the earliest known instances of a woman voting in an Australian election, more than fifty years before Victorian women’s suffrage.
A Melbourne newspaper of the time described her simply as the famous Mrs Finch, a nickname that has followed her into the history books. Fanny Finch was a contemporary of the very era in which the building now known as Temperance House was constructed, trading her own eating house in the town at the same time.
That gives Mrs Finch a genuine, site specific link to Fanny's story: a new Castlemaine eating house, in a building of her own era, carrying her name and her spirit of independence, hospitality, and community forward.