2024 🥧 Tour
Review No 56
The Butchers Wife’s Brew
(Silkwood QLD)
Sept 2024
After leaving the Garradunga Hotel, my plan was to drive straight down to Tully Bakery
and then off to Townsville where I had a stack of reviews and visits locked in. As you know when you’re travelling, plans change regularly and mine did just that after receiving a call from a lady called Kendall asking me to pop into her butcher shop at Silkwood to review her 🥧’s. After doing some of my own research and having my inbox flooded with messages I changed my plans and headed down to Silkwood.
The little town of Silkwood is located just off the Bruce Hwy, roughly 29km from Innisfail or 26km from Tully. This is where you will find The Butcher’s Wife’s Brew, and owners Dave and Kendall.
This is a little butcher shop on steroids. The beef comes from the family property just up the road at “Silkwood Valley Beef” and the cabinet display is phenomenal and very reasonably priced. In 2023, Kendall expanded the shop adding coffee and home made 🥧’s. With no baking experience whatsoever, just a love and passion for cooking Kendall has diversified this business into a must stop shop. Seriously the amount of 🥧’s I saw walk out the door was crazy.
For a butcher shop that sells 🥧’s there is still a good variety of flavours on the menu. There are set flavours on the menu, but Kendall will also regularly come up with a new gourmet flavor that’s very unique and different. I really only wanted to review one 🥧 and that was the “Silkwood Valley Beef” which is a real paddock to 🥧 experience . This was a 🥧 with beef, direct from their lush green paddocks. 12 hours slow cooked Silkwood Valley Beef bathed in a rich italian gravy. OMG I couldn’t wait to get cracking.
🥧 THE REVIEW 🥧
1. Value for Money – $7.90 was sensational value !!! This 🥧 and all their 🥧’s are bloody monsters. Weighing between 335g to 350g this was a huge 🥧 in diameter and depth. It was quite a challenge working out what part of the 🥧 to attack first. Exceptional value !!! 10/10
2. Meat/Fill Ratio – Totally full and I mean full. This 🥧 was jammed packed with huge pieces of beautifully cooked beef. 10/10
3. Flavour – One word “Stunning” The flavour in this plain 🥧 was out of this world. The meat melted in your mouth and was so tender words can not describe it. The dark gravy sauce was terrific and complemented the meat beautifully. The flavour couldn’t be faulted. 10/10
4. Pastry – Perfect !!! As this 🥧 weighed a tonne, I was particularly worried about its stability. However, it did not move one bit, I flipped this 🥧 so many times and still it didn’t move. The shape and color were excellent and the bakes and the bake thicknesses were also perfect outstanding job. 10/10
5. Serving Temperature – No issues at all, perfect serving temperature. 10/10
Overall Rating
🥧🥧 50/50 🥧🥧
Kendall welcome to the perfect school club !!! Your “Paddock to Pie” was perfect in every way. In fact every 🥧 I sampled that day was perfect. $7.90 is ridiculously cheap for a 🥧 of this size and weight. The flavour and the quality of the beef in this 🥧 was devine. Yes, punters will argue that the pastry bases are not made on site, but you’ve still gotta get both bakes spot on and the bakes in this 🥧 were perfect. I can only score what’s in front of me and the pastry in this 🥧 was first class. I mulled over this scoring for a long time, but in the end, in my opinion, this was the perfect 🥧 and easily the best plain 🥧 I’ve had. During my visit I also sampled the Pepper Steak, Lamb & Rosemary, Smokey Pork & Honey, Curried Goat, Curried Beef, Cheese & Jalapeño and finally the Cheese Burger 🥧. All were out of this world.
It’s less than 8km off the highway, but trust me you need to add this place to your 🥧 list. I heard the 🥧’s were good, but I didn’t know they were that good. I took some friends with me to this review and one of them said “it’s the best 🥧 that he’s ever had” I will give you a tip get in early as these 🥧’s sell out very fast.
A special, thanks to Kendall and Dave for their incredible hospitality and looking after us. They are a wonderful family and have done an exceptional job in this business. The hard work that goes into this business and behind-the-scenes stuff is hard to fathom. You’re going to be blown away not only by the 🥧’s but the meat, Dave has displayed in his cabinets. This place is a real paddock to plate experience with the beef grass feed on the family property, slaughtered on the property and then served at the butcher shop. All this best guys 100% stay in touch and Kendall thank you for reaching out.
This was my second time at the Garrdunga Hotel and it’s a very special place. Out the back has stacks of room to camp and the pub itself is picturesque, locals are awesome and the meals are terrific. If your’re looking for somewhere close to the Babinda Boulders, Josephine Falls or Paronella Park definitely keep this joint in mind to camp. Highly recommended.
