Giant Steps Innocent Bystander Winery

Came by after hearing very good feedbacks. We were not disappointed. Our waiter is friendly and informative despite the many questions I had.
Food is top notch. Both tapas and pizza. The pumpkin freekah salad is out of this world. Simply really good.
While waiting for our food, we went for wine tasting. Innocent bystander range is free and Giant Steps costs $ 10 per head.
Tried both. Giant’s $ 10 tasting was incredible. The wine connoisseur, Oliver, was very informative and the produce was one of the best we’ve tried for a long while.
Will be back for the Giant Step Chardonnay and Syrah.

ambiance/​/​*****
spaciously separating the store portion from the café
you can eat then shop or vice versa
hungry eyes anyone?!
we decided to dine outside… enjoying the delightful spring weather of yarra valley
service/​***
service was very standard… no surprises =p
food/​/​*****
delicious and beautifully plated dishes and beverages
my cousin was IGing the sh! t out of photos with my hand and our sunnies as props lol
ps. their moscato is highly recommended… so guess who went home with 2 bottles? ;p
~*~
wonderful place to brunch! that and I like going to places where I can also purchase the stuff I’ve had in the shoppe section
Thank You Sharon C. for the hospitality!

Don’t be a bystander — through yourself right into the action, you won’t regret it! This place has a LOT to offer. Based in Healesville (a lovely little town to explore) you can enjoy a great day trip if you want a break out of the city or need somewhere to take visiting guests.
The menu has a lot of variety and is designed for sharing (unless of course you want the goodness all to yourself). We had the ham croquettes — which had a delicious crispy shell enveloping the smooth and tasty filling, the grilled lamb — juicy, well seasoned and smoky, and the spring bay mussels — the sauce of which we mopped up with bread to savour all the goodness, followed by the spicy pork sausage pizza — as the name suggests the sausage had a lovely kick and generous amounts of buffalo mozzarella all atop a lovely homemade base and the nicest pizza sauce I have ever tasted.
There are plenty of take home goodies — we purchased one of the half loaf fruit breads (which we toasted the next day for breakfast — delicious) and a Portuguese tart which we shared for dessert! There is also wine, breads and t-​shirts for sale!
On a recommendation we booked a head which was lucky. On the beautiful spring day that we visited it was pumping from the moment we sat down for our 2pm reservation until we left.

Dropped in for a Sunday morning breakfast to begin our day in the Yarra valley. We wandered in and were immediately greeted with a couple of menus and told to sit where ever we wanted. A few minutes after almost all the tables were full. We chose the halloumi tart, ham and cheese croissant, cheddar, Chive and bacon muffin and vanilla bean doughnut. There was a little wait on coffees so we began eating.
Everything was incredible, especially the savoury muffin from the bakery. We were so incredibly full at the end but you could easily grab a box to fill with leftovers or fill up on baked goods. The system is self serve so make sure you load up before heading to the register to pay.
We also grabbed a bottle of rose, proseco and moscato and a loaf of sourdough before leaving. Can’t wait to go back and try lunch!

I’ve been a fan of Giant Steps since they first started making wine over 11 years ago, long before they created this terrific cellar door experience. These kids are clever. They know how to make delicious wine and have two ranges pitched at slightly different markets — The IB range pitched slightly younger or for what I like to call «Tuesday night drinking» and the Giant Steps which is high end, special drinking and what I like to call «stash it away for later» kind of wine. Each range offers terrific value and you can try both when you visit the cellar door, though the GS tasting will set you back a tasting fee of $ 10.
On top of great wine, these kids know how to cook (pizza, shared-​dishes) and know that to keep people happy you should keep them fulfilled with coffee (they roast their own), cheese (the have an amazing selection) and sweet treats (check out their take-​home cake and pastry section). It’s a massive venue, but don’t go assuming you can just rock up unannounced. Giant Steps is hugely popular, particularly on weekends, so do yourself and your hungry family a favour and make a reservation well ahead of arriving.

This restaurant was recommended to us by a few friends before we headed to Healesville. I can’t say it blew me away– the waitress was a little lacklustre when we asked her about the wine she brought us to taste, although our main waiter was friendly, attentive and knowledgable. The tapas-​style plates were interesting, but the $ 20+ individual pizzas didn’t fill our kids up so didn’t represent good value. Nice atmosphere and interesting menu if you’re looking for a meal out, but nothing special.

Giant Steps Innocent Bystander Winery. It’s an interesting name for a winery and makes no damn sense at all. BUT it’s provocative! Ok. It isn’t really provocative. Well, the winery didn’t have any giant steps and the steps to the entrances were quite normal to me. Maybe it’s a metaphor for how it feels after you had a couple of crates of wine.
Anyway, we stopped by Giant Steps after a day at Marysville and it was a great choice. They had a great beer selection and the pizza was damn good. It’s definitely up there with the NYC and Chicago pizza I’ve had. It’s in my top 3 for sure. We had the Spicy Pork pizza.
It was a thin pizza like NYC’s flat, fold-​able pizza, but it had a crispy and crunchy dough to it like Chicago’s pizza. I guess it’s the best of both worlds. The Spicy Pork wasn’t spicy but more for flavor. It wasn’t a pork belly but ground pork with loads of fat mixed in it like me every new year before my resolution that I roll forward every year. Pun intended. Get it? Roll? Roll forward?
The service was great. The waitress was really helpful and had recommendations on items on the menu. The winery itself was very pretty. It had a very modern rustic feel to it if there is such a thing. Well, if there isn’t, there is now.
Overall, it’s a great spot to grab a drink and have some pizza. It’s a really cool winery and totally unpretentious like other renowned wineries. *cough Napa cough*

Wow was this good! After enjoying a fresh beer at the White Rabbit Brewery we wandered over to the Innocent Bystander. We ordered a nice bottle of wine along with the calabrese pizza and hand cut chips with aioli. Everything was delicious! For dessert we ordered the chocolate cake that came with fresh cream — some of the best fresh cream we’ve ever had! I’m hoping we get one more visit in here before we leave the area.

OK; lets bring a bit of sanity back into this — i have frequented IB since it opened (over 6 years), and i am a 377? resident;
over the years it has being reincarnated several times; the pizza is good, but i prefer zonzo’s BTW, just near Yarra Glen, now that’s a gem of the yarra valey.
coffee is way to mild for my taste; so anyone who like «real coffee» perhaps this is not the place. i wish they would do a strong expresso roast — Guys?
when its busy you must take your noise cancelling headphone along; again this is not what i call enjoyable dining… others don’t mind;
Cheers

This place was a little gem — easy to find and great ambience!!! Staff were very friendly and helpful with the menu and what to recommend.
Is designed as a share/​tapas type menu and with a great drinks list and MANY wines to offer — had a Pinot Noir there and was probably the best/​lightest and freshest red I’ve had in a long time!
Our eating choices for the day were:
Had dozen oysters they were to die for.
The beef brisket — little dry but still very tasty.
Cured Wagyu and the asparagus salad and chorizo potatoes for sides!!!
Yum.
With the large indoor and groovy outdoor wooden areas and warm welcoming feel I Definitely will drive the hr for that experience again!

We’ve only ever been to IB on the busiest of Saturday nights so thought we’d take a trip out for a Thursday dinner for some quiet time. We’ve misjudged, it’s local night. Anyone with postcode 377. gets 25% off and everyone with such a postcode is there. Bambinos clatter spoons and forks with doughy cheesy anticipation. They mistake my glares for requests for an encore and so sets the scene. Placated with a (big) glass of their 2013 Sangiovese I start to forget that six under six are playing musical chairs to aforementioned bambinos musical genius and that regular talking has been replaced with shrill squeals (of joy — but not mine).
Two glasses in, having fought husband for the most delicious pork belly and chicken terrine I have had since France and I am now encouraging squeals and musical chairs, hell this food tastes so good I may almost join in.
But the true glory lay in the pizza. This version was a little thicker on the base than that which I’ve had previously, which we personally liked. The smothering of the Napoli sauce meant that when you fold over the slice and squeeze the dough, it oozes enthusiastically. Slurping licking goodness. I suggest people would rather have sat next to the kids than us at this point… The lights are dimmer (or just my senses are), the old jazzy tunes are turned up and everyone is happy.
I love this place. I love their breakfast muffins (which I may or may not have had after the pizza), their smashing coffee, their wine, their friendly but not pushy staff and even the local kids. The next morning I didn’t like them as much…

This is my favourite place in Healesville, possibly even the Yarra Valley! They make THE most amazing Moscato I’ve ever tasted. But wait… there’s more… It’s not only this deliciously addictive wine they make, their Moscato is almost it’s own little franchise. As well as coming in the usual bottle, it’s also comes in smaller, take home ⁴⁄₆ packs, cans, it has it’s very own glasses, hot pink Moscato coasters… AND… I got a little too excited about this part… It comes in frozen/​granita/​daiquiri form! For someone who loves cold, frozen, sweet things, and delicious, refreshing Moscato, I was in taste bud heaven. It’s like being a little kid again drinking a very non-​kiddy grown up drink (kids do not try).
Ok Moscato-​rant over. It’s surprisingly not the only thing I love here. The Wood-​fired pizzas are to die for, as are the truffle oil fries. There’s always great music playing, you can see right into the wine cellar which gives a very rustic, industrial feel. There’s a bakery section with great bread and pastries (try the lemon tart!), really good coffee, the best vanilla ice cream any of my friends have ever had, and, to top it all off, Turkish Delight sorbet??? The designers of this place have thought of everything. You get to drink great wine, eat great food that’s delicious, sophisticated and fun! Oh and go into the bathrooms ladies and use their hand soap. Smells so good you’ll want to eat it. Can’t speak for the men’s bathroom, you might need to just sniff your female friends’ lovely hands.
Enjoy…

My partner and I stumbled upon this gem on a recent trip out to Healesville. Not wanting to make the drive out to a winery, we set our sights upon something local, and Innocent Bystander surpassed all of my expectations. Having no idea we would need a reservations, we were surprised to find a massive crowd on a Thursday evening, but while waiting for a table we were served drinks in a lovely little corner of the restaurant/​bar/​winery/​bakery, which felt intimate while still being a great place to people watch.
When we did sit down, the food and service were both amazing. We had a pizza with picked eggplant (amaze!), sausage and cheese, which was devoured, as well as some of the smaller share plates, including a chicken liver and duck terrine and smoked salmon. For dessert my boyfriend ordered Turkish Delight (which I’m normally not a fan of) which was homemade with Innocent Bystander moscato… needless to say, it turned me into a fan.
The next arvo we went back to try some of their coffee and pastries, but I was disappointed to find that the previous nights dinner menu was also the lunch menu, hence why I haven’t given Innocent Bystander 5 stars. While a great dinner menu, it’s just too expensive and rich to serve as a lunch menu.

This place is awesome! Not only the restaurant, but the wine here is amazing. The Pinot Noir is one of the best I tasted in the Yara. And don’t get me started about the muscat.
The food was good, but honestly nothing fancy. If you are looking for fancy food — you might want to go somewhere else. But it is good.
You can also buy bread, cheese and pastries to take home. Which we did. The Portuguese tarts are good. But honestly the best thing about this place is the wine.

Romantic, fresh, organic, child friendly, indoor seating and outdoor seating… this place has it all… and it’s in Healesville, Australia! This place was like being in northern California except that people drive on the other side of the road down here.
Most of the food and wine was delicious. The service is not fast but they tell you that. I will say that some of the tapas were not as «perfect» as they could have been but overall, this place is great. Pricey at $ 200 for five.

I came here with my wife after touring the Yarra Valley and sampling a ton of wines. Still sober, we came here for dinner based on the recommendation of the chef/​owner of one of the smaller wineries that we visited.
Everything that we order was up to par, sans the truffle fries, the prosciutto board, trout salad, oysters on the half shell, and the the salami pizza. Let me say that the pizza was AMAZING! One of the best I’ve ever had. It was super thin, cheese was browned slightly to perfection, wonderful amounts of tomato from Italy, and huge salami slices baked perfectly in a wood-​fired oven.
I would come back just for the pizza alone. There is also a brewery and winery that are connected to the property, but we didn’t get to visit these because they were closed.

Quite enjoyable in every way. Modern, spacious and comfortable, the dining room features a glass wall look into the working winery, so you never quite forget that this is a cellar door (tasting room) and not just a restaurant. That could be easily forgotten, however, given the extensive and sophisticated menu, which features an impressive charcuterie selection (albeit without a mixed charcuterie option, for some reason), an extensive cheese program, fantastic house-​made bread, and seasonal dishes that never failed to impress. Besides their own wines, they also stock an impressive list of their favorite wines from Australia and around the world. A little more casual than most restaurants of this caliber, but the food is top shelf.

The food is a bit hit and miss here for me, some people rave about the place and the pizzas but I am not a massive fan. Big draw cards are the Little Creatures brewery next door and the great selection of wines. The service here is excellent but somehow they get away with charging a 10% surcharge for a Sunday.
This is one of those places that has great facilities and features on my appropriate list. Great hand soap and hand creams!

Giant Steps is an amazing multifunctional space — wine tasting, bistro dining, bakery, and café — housed in a spacious, modern, open-​plan building. We visited several times on our last trip to Healesville: for a late lunch, for morning coffee, for evening drinks, and for a bakery run or two.
For lunchtime, the wood-​fired pizzas and accompaniments were perfect over a couple different glasses of their Pinot Noirs. The standouts were the melt-​in-​your-​mouth plate of wagyu bresaola dressed with fresh pressed olive oil, and the witlof, radish, and smoked trout salad with a tangy-​sweet citrusy dressing. In the evening, we enjoyed snacking on the spiced cashews while sampling the Mule Gateway Vineyard Sangiovese. In the morning, we took away some lovely, rich milk chocolately noted espressos with a sourdough baguette. My partner raved over his custardy Portuguese Tart, and we both looked longingly at the pizzettas with bubbly egg baked in the middle.
Both of us mused about how much we longed for a space like this in Melbourne; with the ample light, open space, and wifi it’s the kind of place you could spend untold hours writing, reading, and the like. But, let’s face it, in the city it would probably be too noisy, too crowded, and less special. In fact, the waitstaff told us that they can get crazy busy on the weekends with the out of town crowd. Mid-​week it was bliss: quiet, but not too quiet, with different groups of people dotted around carrying on conversations.
In sum, if the lack of places like Giant Steps in the city is the problem, then the solution is clear: more mid-​week getaways to Healesville!

I’m like a kid in a candy store every time I pop out to Giant Steps. Incredible wine, freshly baked bread, a decadent menu and fantastic service to boot — you really can’t go wrong.
My first visit to Giant Steps was on a surprisingly ladylike Hens Party. I indulged in one of their famous pizzas which are on a 100% organic sourdough bread and then topped it off with a cheese tasting from their home-​matured selection. I also noticed they have a children’s menu so this is a good place to take the kids too!
We were then lucky enough to do a tour of the winery, see how everything was made and then of course finished up with a tasting. The Pinot Noir is orgasmic.
It can be pricey — you’re looking at around $ 30 for a main meal, but why not spoil yourself?