About us

Grab a seat and let us tell you a story…

This stretch of the river has been feeding people for longer than we have.

Way before there was a wine list, there was a weigh station. The site started life as Barwon Heads' fishermen's co-op — where the day's catch came in, got sorted, and made its way to local tables. Years later, as Diver Dan's Boatshed Cafe, it found a different kind of fame: this was the real building behind the fictional Pearl Bay, a filming location for Sea Change, the show that introduced half the country to this coastline from their living rooms.

These days we go by At The Heads, but we haven't wandered far from either version of ourselves. There's still a boat-to-plate obsession running through everything we do, and a menu that changes with the seasons — what's good on the water dictates what's good on the plate.

Our Exec Chef Paul Bongiovanni made his own sea change, moving from Higher Ground in Melbourne to Barwon Heads in 2020. More on Paul's journey here.

At The Heads sits on the Country of the Wadawurrung people, Traditional Owners of the Bellarine Peninsula and its waterways for tens of thousands of years. We acknowledge their continuing connection to this land, river and sea, and pay our respects to Elders past and present. We recognise that the produce and place we celebrate here carries a much longer story than our own.