A secluded fine dining restaurant where Australian native ingredients meet multicultural heritage — 30 minutes from Canberra CBD and fifteen from Bungendore.
Aranya — wilderness in Sanskrit — is 25 acres of vines, gums and open sky, and one of the newest restaurants in the Canberra region: we opened in 2026. Chef Praneel Singh’s native Australian menu — built on a Goan and Portuguese backbone, with Indian, Mediterranean and Italian technique running through it — a full bar, and a Canberra District cellar list. A winery restaurant with a working cellar door downstairs, all under one roof in the hills of Wamboin. Fifteen minutes from Bungendore, half an hour from Canberra, and one of the few Canberra wineries with a restaurant you can sit down in all day. Of the places to eat within half an hour of the CBD, not many come with their own cellar door downstairs and a vineyard out the window. It is a winery that serves lunch rather than a cellar door with a cheese plate, it is family friendly with a dedicated kids menu, and it is open every public holiday Monday as well as Thursday to Sunday — which makes it a straightforward day trip from Canberra.
It is also a fully coeliac friendly kitchen — not one that will simply try. Separate preparation areas, separate equipment and separate handling keep cross-contamination out, every dish on the à la carte is marked for gluten and thirteen other allergens, and a number are built gluten free as standard rather than adapted on request — the lasagne sheets, the pasta, the puff pastry, the crackers. Coeliac guests order from the same menu as everyone else. Tell us when you book and the chefs will take you through it. How the coeliac kitchen works →
Our Story
Where the city falls away, something more honest takes its place.
Aranya Acres lives on the former Contentious Character site in Wamboin. We reimagined it as a place where people can truly escape — a native-focused kitchen, a craft cocktail bar and a rotating gallery of local artists, all set among 25 acres of vines, gums and open sky. Three separate businesses share the address: the restaurant is ours; the winery and cellar door downstairs belong to Sapling Yard Wines; and the vineyard is managed by Wamboin Hills Estate, who look after the agricultural side and the rejuvenation project.
In the kitchen, Chef de Cuisine Praneel Singh builds each menu around the Australian landscape — lemon myrtle, Dorrigo pepper, finger lime, macadamia, wattleseed and bush tomato — woven through with multicultural heritage. Behind the bar, the cellar list showcases growers from across the Canberra District. Downstairs and independently of us, Sapling Yard Wines makes its award-winning cool-climate wines, and its cellar door handles the wine tasting — so a single visit covers lunch and a tasting without moving the car. If you are looking for a restaurant near Canberra that is genuinely in the country rather than on the edge of it, this is the drive.
Two can book Date Night, a set dinner for two at $185, and if you live out this way the locals’ page has the midweek menu, trivia and live music in one place. The same 25 acres host vineyard weddings and private functions — ceremonies among the vines, long tables in the dining room — and the walls carry a rotating gallery of local artists.
In Their Words
What our guests say
★★★★★4.9from 116 Google reviews
★★★★★
Aranya Acres is an absolute hidden gem. From the moment you arrive, it feels like you’ve stepped into somewhere genuinely special — calm, beautiful, welcoming, and full of soul.
Sarah EdwardsGoogle review
★★★★★
We had a fantastic Friday lunch at the restaurant and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Both the food and wines were excellent! Highly recommend giving it a go. High end fine dining with a twist of amazing flavours.
Adele PraterGoogle review
★★★★★
Had lunch here today and it was 10/10. The service, food, vibes were all amazing.
Live jazz most Fridays, trivia every Thursday, woodfire pizzas Thursday & Sunday nights — join us at the long table.
Live at Aranya · Friday Jazz
Friday 16 October · 7pm
Live at Aranya: Amelie Thomas
Jazz Covers
Canberra vocalist Amelie Thomas — classically trained, with a career spanning local and international stages. Smooth, soulful renditions of jazz standards and classic favourites while the sun goes down over the vines.
Eclectic yet effortlessly classy. Simon Halabi on piano, Jeremy on double bass and Mark on drums — traditional jazz standards threaded with clever, modern twists, while the sun goes down over the vines.
The last three sessions sold out in record time, so Cassie is back for Christmas. A glass of bubbles on arrival, a grazing board and everything you need at the easel — no experience necessary, and the painting goes home with you.
