The Provincial Hotel has only been open for three months or so when we rock up on an autumn evening, and there’s a buzz in the air that reflects the buzz on the street in Ballarat right now; this new boutique accommodation feels like the perfect complement to the recent crop of culinary and arts offerings that is securing the old gold town’s reputation as the perfect spot for a weekend away.
It’s centrally located on Lydiard Street and opposite the railway station – the height of convenience should you be rolling in from Melbourne by train.
I’m a sucker for a heritage building and this one, built in 1909 and listed by the National Trust for its expressive Art Nouveau facade, had me at its domed turrets. But a new story has been written inside by owners Simon and Gorgi Coghlan and business partner Drew Harry. They’ve created a stylish and serene space that, in true Ballarat style, takes design cues from contemporary trends while staying sympathetic to the building’s old bones.
Blue and ivory interiors are seen throughout
The lobby
A blue-and-ivory colour palette is employed throughout its common spaces and most guest rooms, built up in layers of subtly contrasting patterns; each area we move through presents its own lovely vignette.
Reaching the first floor landing en route to our suite (one of 23 across the boutique hotel and its corporate wing), for example, I take in the colourful and geometric art of Buninyong artist Robyn Batrouney. It plays off against the illustrative Brunschwig & Fils wallpaper it’s mounted on and the sinuous stained-glass window in the stairwell opposite. Our Lola Deluxe is, pleasingly, more of the same: a riff on texture and colour.
A pallette of blue and ivory runs throughout the hotel
The room
The styling throughout the bedroom and separate living area echoes Cabarita Beach’s Halcyon House and London and New York’s Firmdale Hotels: a big, bold bedhead is plumped up with plush cushions; antique furniture is met with modern upholstery; vintage and modern prints in mismatched frames are juxtaposed against each other. And there’s Aesop in the bathroom, which is always a good sign.
We’re greeted with a welcome note and a bottle of local wine and even though I was anticipating this – part of the deal when you book directly through the website – it still feels like a nice surprise. A ‘Provincial Hotel Passport’ offers further welcome and a list of recommendations on where to eat, drink and play nearby as well as further afield.
Expect a big, bold bed headLight-filled bedrooms are a delight to see
The food
After a long drive from Sydney we opt for a low-key pub meal down the road rather than dining at elegant in-house restaurant Lola (named after the exotic dancer and actress Lola Montez, who caused a sensation when she visited the Goldfields in the 1850s), but make a beeline for breakfast there in the morning.
Head chef Shaun Thomson has worked alongside the likes of Peter Gilmore, Neil Perry and Peter Kuruvita, and his menu celebrates Ballarat-region produce at any time of day.
We settle into a navy-leather banquette in the bright, sunny dining room, where the colour palette and style notes carry through. My Aussie classic of poached eggs and avo on toast with local Meredith feta is done just right; as is my St Ali coffee. Our stay here at the Provincial has indeed been a treat – as promised.
A dish of wild rabbit raviolo at Lola
The AT verdict
It’s no surprise The Provincial Hotel recently won Best Boutique Style Accommodation at the Tourism Accommodation Australia (Victoria) awards: this is the ideal crash pad for a cultural weekender in Ballarat.
Score
4/5
We rated
The attention to detail: from the passionate staff to the thoughtful notes and beautifully executed styling throughout. Seemingly five minutes from everything, its location too is ideal for exploring this very walkable city by foot.
We’d change
We watched a film on the room’s Apple TV (another nice touch) but couldn’t quite get comfy on the couch!
All AT reviews are conducted anonymously and our writers pay their own way – so we experience exactly what you would.
Imogen Eveson is Australian Traveller’s Print Editor. She was named Editor of the Year at the 2024 Mumbrella Publish Awards and in 2023, was awarded the Cruise Line Industry Association (CLIA) Australia’s Media Award. Before joining Australian Traveller Media as sub-editor in 2017, Imogen wrote for publications including Broadsheet, Russh and SilverKris. She launched her career in London, where she graduated with a BA Hons degree in fashion communication from world-renowned arts and design college Central Saint Martins. She is the author/designer of The Wapping Project on Paper, published by Black Dog Publishing in 2014. Growing up in Glastonbury, home to the largest music and performing arts festival in the world, instilled in Imogen a passion for cultural cross-pollination that finds perfect expression today in shaping Australia’s leading travel titles. Imogen regularly appears as a guest on radio travel segments, including ABC National Nightlife, and is invited to attend global travel expos such as IMM, ILTM, Further East and We Are Africa.
Abandoned mills and forgotten paper plants are finding second lives – and helping redefine a city long underestimated.
Just 15 years ago, Federal Mills was a very different place. Once among the most significant industrial sites in Victoria, the historic woollen mill was one of a dozen that operated in Geelong at the industry’s peak in the mid-20th century, helping the city earn its title as ‘wool centre of the world’. But by the 1960s global competition and the rise of synthetic fabrics led to the slow decline of the industry, and Federal Mills finally shuttered its doors in 2001. Within a few years, the abandoned North Geelong grounds had become makeshift pastoral land, with cows and goats grazing among the overgrown grass between the empty red-brick warehouses. It was a forgotten pocket of the city, all but two klicks from the bustle of the CBD.
Geelong has shed its industrial identity to become an innovative urban hub with reimagined heritage spaces. (Image: Ash Hughes)
Federal Mills: from forgotten factory to creative precinct
Today, the century-old complex stands reborn. The distinctive sawtooth-roof buildings have been sensitively restored. An old silo is splashed with a bright floral mural, landscapers have transformed the grounds, and the precinct is once again alive with activity. More than 1000 people work across 50-plus businesses here. It’s so busy, in fact, that on a sunny Thursday morning in the thick of winter, it’s hard to find a car park. The high ceilings, open-plan design, and large multi-paned windows – revolutionary features for factories of their time – have again become a drawcard.
Paddock Bakery and Patisserie is housed within the historic wool factory. (Image: Gallant Lee)
At Paddock , one of the precinct’s newer tenants, weaving looms and dye vats have been replaced by a wood-fired brick oven and heavy-duty mixers. Open since April 2024, the bakery looks right at home here; the building’s industrial shell is softened by ivy climbing its steel frames, and sunlight streams through the tall windows. Outside, among the white cedar trees, families at picnic benches linger over dippy eggs and bagels, while white-collar workers pass in and out, single-origin coffee and crème brûlée doughnuts in hand.
Geelong: Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design
Paddock Bakery can be found at Federal Mills. (Image: Gallant Lee)
“A lot of people are now seeing the merit of investing in Geelong,” says Paul Traynor, the head of Hamilton Hospitality Group, which redeveloped Federal Mills. A city once shunned as Sleepy Hollow, and spurned for its industrial, working-class roots and ‘rust belt’ image, Geelong has long since reclaimed its ‘Pivot City’ title, having reinvented itself as an affordable, lifestyle-driven satellite city, and a post-COVID migration hotspot.
And the numbers stand testament to the change. In March 2025, and for the first time in its history, Greater Geelong became Australia’s most popular regional town for internal migration, overtaking Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Current forecasts suggest Geelong will continue to outpace many other Australian cities and towns, with jobs growing at double the rate of the population.
Tourism is booming, too. The 2023-24 financial year was Geelong and The Bellarine region’s busiest on record, with 6.4 million visitors making it one of the fastest-growing destinations in the country. It’s not hard to see why: beyond the city’s prime positioning at the doorstep of the Great Ocean Road, Geelong’s tenacity and cultural ambition stands out.
As Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design, Geelong is swiftly shaking off its industrial past to become a model for urban renewal, innovation, sustainability and creative communities. The signs are everywhere, from the revitalisation of the city’s waterfront, and the landmark design of the Geelong Library and Heritage Centre and Geelong Arts Centre, to the growing network of local designers, architects and artists, and the burgeoning roster of festivals and events. That’s not even mentioning the adaptive reuse of storied old industrial buildings – from Federal Mills, to Little Creatures’ brewery ‘village’ housed within a 1920s textile mill – or the city’s flourishing food and wine scene.
The rise of a food and wine destination
Restaurant 1915 is housed within a restored former boiler house. (Image: Harry Pope/Two Palms)
Traynor credits now-closed local restaurant Igni, which opened in 2016, as the turning point for Geelong’s hospo industry. “[Aaron Turner, Igni’s chef-patron] was probably the first guy, with all due respect, to raise the bar food-wise for Geelong,” he says. “People now treat it really seriously, and there’s clearly a market for it.” While Igni is gone, Turner now helms a string of other notable Geelong venues, including The Hot Chicken Project and Tacos y Liquor, all within the buzzy, street art-speckled laneways of the CBD’s Little Malop Street Precinct. Many others have also popped up in Igni’s wake, including Federal Mills’ own restaurant, 1915 . Housed within the cavernous boiler house, 1915’s interior is dramatic: soaring, vaulted ceilings with timber beams, exposed brick, a huge arched window. The share plates echo the space’s bold character, playing with contrast and texture, with dishes such as a compressed watermelon tataki, the sweet, juicy squares tempered by salty strands of fried leeks, and charred, smoky snow peas dusted with saganaki on a nutty bed of romesco.
The Woolstore is a new restaurant and bar housed within a century-old warehouse. (Image: Amy Carlon)
The Woolstore , one of The Hamilton Group’s most recent hospo projects, opened in February. It occupies a century-old riverside warehouse and exudes a more sultry, fine dining ambience. Much like Federal Mills, the blueprint was to preserve the original brickwork, tallowwood flooring and nods to the building’s former life. That same careful consideration extends to the well-versed, affable waitstaff as well as the kitchen. Head chef Eli Grubb is turning out an eclectic mix of ambitious and indulgent mod Oz dishes that deliver: strikingly tender skewers of chicken tsukune, infused with hints of smoke from the parrilla grill, and glazed with a moreish, sweet gochujang ‘jam’; nduja arancini fragrant with hints of aniseed and the earthy lick of sunny saffron aioli; and golden squares of potato pavé, adorned with tiny turrets of crème fraîche, crisp-fried saltbush leaves, and Avruga caviar, to name but a few stand-out dishes.
Woolstore’s menu is designed for sharing.
Breathing new life into historic spaces
On the city’s fringe, hidden down a winding side road with little fanfare, lies a long-dormant site that’s being gently revived. Built from locally quarried bluestone and brick, and dating back to the 1870s, the complex of original tin-roofed mill buildings is lush with greenery and backs onto the Barwon River and Buckley Falls; the audible rush of water provides a soothing soundtrack. Fyansford Paper Mill is one of few complexes of its time to survive intact. It feels steeped in history and spellbindingly rustic.
“We were looking for an old industrial place that had some charm and romance to it,” explains Sam Vogel, the owner, director and winemaker at Provenance Wines which moved here in 2018. When he first viewed the building with his former co-owner, it was in such a state of disrepair that the tradie tenant occupying the space had built a shed within it to escape the leaking roof and freezing winter temperatures. “To say it was run down would be an understatement,” he notes. “There was ivy growing through the place; the windows were all smashed. It was a classic Grand Designs project.”
Provenance Wines moved to Fyansford Paper Mill in 2018. (Image: Cameron Murray Photography)
The team has since invested more than a million dollars into their new home. Where paper processing machinery once sat, wine barrels are now stacked. Vaulted cathedral ceilings are strung with festoon lights, and hidden in plain sight lies a shadowy mural by local street artist de rigueur Rone – one of only three permanent works by the artist.
While the award-winning, cool-climate pinot noir, riesling and chardonnay naturally remain a key draw at Provenance, the winery’s restaurant is a destination in itself. Impressed already by whipsmart service, I devour one of the most cleverly curated and faultlessly executed degustations I’ve had in some time. It’s all prepared in a kitchen that is proudly zero-waste, and committed to providing seasonal, ethical and locally sourced meat and produce under head chef Nate McIver. Think free-range venison served rare with a syrupy red wine jus and a half-moon of neon-orange kosho, shokupan with a deeply savoury duck fat jus (a modern Japanese take on bread and drippings), and a golden potato cake adorned with a colourful confetti of dehydrated nasturtiums and tomato powder, and planted atop a sea urchin emulsion.
Bell’s handcrafted functional pieces on display.
The complex is home to a coterie of independent businesses, including a gallery, a jeweller, and its latest tenant, ceramicist Elizabeth Bell, drawn here by the building’s “soul”. “There’s so much potential for these buildings to have new life breathed into them,” says Bell, whose studio is housed within the old pump room. “Even people in Geelong don’t know we’re here,” she says. “It’s definitely a destination, but I like that. It has a really calming atmosphere.”
A Melbourne transplant, Bell now feels at home in Geelong, which offers something Melbourne didn’t. “If this business was in Melbourne I don’t think it would’ve been as successful,” she notes. “It’s very collaborative in Geelong, and I don’t think you get that as much in Melbourne; you’re a bit more in it for yourself. Here it’s about community over competition.”
Ceramicist Elizabeth Bell has a store in Fyansford Paper Mill.
