Templo

Templo is the chef-driven 20-seat dining room of chef Matthew Breen — opened in 2017 on Patrick Street in the Hobart CBD back streets — and is the city's most consistent contemporary mid-tier kitchen. The space is a converted Hobart-heritage townhouse with original Tasmanian-blackwood floors, a single open kitchen at the back wall, and exactly twenty seats across five tables.

Breen's cooking is contemporary Italian-Tasmanian with deep regional sourcing. The menu — and the wines — are simply chalked on a board above the open kitchen and rewritten daily based on the morning's Tasmanian-producer deliveries. Signatures rotate but typically include a hand-rolled tagliolino with Tasmanian black truffle and 36-month Parmigiano; a slow-cooked Tasmanian wallaby with juniper jus; a wood-fired Bass Strait octopus with green olive; a Tasmanian-cheese trolley with twelve regional artisan cheeses; the famous 'tiramisù di Templo'.

The wine list is one of the most interesting in Australia — 250 references built around Tasmanian smallholders and a deep natural-wine section that draws on Adelaide, Yarra Valley, and a tightly chosen European programme. Glass pours start at A$12 and the corkage philosophy is forgiving.

Service is genuinely small-team — Breen himself runs the kitchen and walks the room before the cheese course; the captain has worked the property since 2018. The 20-seat scale means total privacy and a chef-diner conversation that no Hobart restaurant can match.

Templo is the easy-first-date room in Hobart — quieter than Aløft, less formal than Frank, and the 20-seat scale means total privacy from the moment you arrive. The chalkboard-menu format is genuinely conversation-worthy. Book the corner two-top by the open kitchen.