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Kabinett & Curiosities: A Journey Through Kyneton’s Most Beautiful Spaces
Kyneton’s most captivating weekend: scent, craft, cocktails and design woven into one magnetic escape.
There are shops, and then there are portals — places that bend the light a little, where time stops behaving normally. Kabinett, a design-led homewares and perfumery on Kyneton’s historic Piper Street, belongs unapologetically to the latter. Step through the door and something shifts: colours sharpen, memories stir, and suddenly you’re ten years older or younger, depending on which corner you turn. It feels like the golden age of the department store rewritten for now — textured, layered, and fiercely personal.
I felt it instantly: that rare sense of being somewhere built on instinct rather than algorithm or trend. Kabinett is the world of Melissa Macfarlane and Frank Moylan, though they’d never claim that. They’re too focused on what’s next. Their past lives flicker through the building like ghost drafts — old pubs restored by hand, long conversations with artists, decades spent refining an eye for beauty sharp enough to cut through the noise.
Six years ago, they posed a single, deliciously audacious question: ‘Why shouldn’t there be a department store inside an old hotel? ‘ The answer now fills the bluestone bones of the former Royal George, reimagined into a living anthology of everything they love.
Homewares here aren’t objects; they’re intent made visible. Tobacco-toned linen. Portuguese glassware shaped to sit softly in your hand. Vintage furniture sourced from old universities, resorts and workshops, still bearing the quiet marks of their previous lives. Candles that smell like ecstatic gardens. And then — the perfumes.
The fragrance room, once the hotel’s front bar, feels like a small theatre of transformation, and I could have spent the entire day inside it. Memo, Naomi Goodsir and BDK each open a different doorway: Irish Leather with its green, wind-cut memory; Naomi Goodsir with her smoke, depth and shadow; BDK with its fig, tea and sandalwood calm. I moved through them slowly, smelling each one and letting its character settle before reaching for the next.
What I adore about Kabinett is that none of it demands fluency. You don’t need terminology or training. You simply smell, respond, and follow whatever stirs. That ease — that total absence of performance — is part of its charm.
Melissa and Frank pair eras with such ease — a Paris flea-market chair beside a Victorian ceramic, a Moroccan mirror catching the reflection of an Italian perfume bottle — that you stop analysing and simply follow the room.
Upstairs, Botanik waits.
The staircase pulls you toward a deeper, richer world — a bar shaped by colour, stillness and low light. The walls hold broad, expressive brushstrokes in warm, organic forms, broken by flashes of gold that catch the light as you move. The whole room feels painted, sculpted, composed. Shelves of amaro, vermouth and aromatised wine stretch along the walls, each bottle opened and ready to explore. Melissa built this collection over years — especially post-Covid, when she dived headfirst into sourcing independent makers across Europe and Australia. It feels like a true passion project: the work of someone fully invested.
Drinks aren’t hurried. They arrive with intention: a citrus-bright Negroni; The Last Word with its green, herbaceous clarity; something quietly botanical that steadies you before you realise.
Frank brought out a Negroni flight to my perch on the balcony — a terrace thick with plants and suspended above Piper Street. The air carried that familiar Macedon Ranges bite, brisk enough to wake you, gentle enough to savour. Each riff had its own personality, but the one that stayed with me was the Pretty in Pink, Melissa’s blend of Audemus pink pepper gin, Orange Colombo and local distiller Autonomy’s Davo Plum bitters. Bright, playful, unexpectedly elegant.
Later, Melissa led me through an aperitivo tasting: Autonomy’s Davo Plum, sharp and electric; Orange Colombo, warm with spice; Sirene Americano, alpine and lifted; La Pêche, soft with stone fruit; Gentiane de Lure, satisfyingly bitter. Five pours, five moods. All hits. Halfway through, I called my Negroni-loving partner to apologise for not bringing him along — a very real, very deserved moment of remorse.
And soon Botanik will echo Kabinett even more directly. Melissa and Frank are developing a cocktail list inspired by the perfumes downstairs — not literal translations, but atmospheric interpretations. A drink shaped by the cool green edge of Irish Leather; something velvety for Naomi Goodsir; a quiet, shadowed blend drawn from Gris Charnel. It feels like the direction the whole building has been moving toward.
For dinner, I walked to Marchesa, the Italian restaurant spoken about with unwavering admiration. My expectations were high; the meal exceeded them. Stracciatella — cool, creamy, assured. Duck agnolotti — rich and comforting. A tiramisu so light and thoughtful it dissolved almost as soon as it arrived. The room held that unmistakable Piper Street warmth: low light, steady service, a feeling of being looked after with ease.
Where to Stay: House of Sol
To complete the weekend, House of Sol sits a short walk away: an adults-only house-hotel shaped around the philosophy of the six elements — Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Metal and Ether. Tara and Taras Pearce reimagined the 1850s cottage with input from Melissa, who helped source and design key pieces that give the interiors their distinct calm and character. The result is a home-hotel that doesn’t simply look beautiful; it behaves beautifully.
Earth tones steady you; water-inspired curves soften the eye; fire brings warmth through colour; air moves through open lines; metal adds clarity and structure; ether appears in crystalline touches that shift the space almost imperceptibly. The layout follows Feng Shui principles yet feels natural, intuitive, lived-in.
You unpack and feel yourself land. Fabrics have presence. Colours settle exactly where they should. Art opens subtle internal doorways. It’s a stay that encourages you to return to yourself — not through stillness alone, but through awareness of texture, light, breath and the quiet intelligence of the space around you.
Kyneton itself amplifies the experience with its galleries, vintage stores and cafes that feel connected rather than competitive. Melissa and Frank have been part of this street for nearly twenty years, and the relationships woven through Kabinett echo outward into the town. You feel it in the way people greet each other, in how easily conversations begin.
Kabinett, Botanik, Marchesa and House of Sol sit within this environment with a natural coherence. Each stands alone yet contributes to something larger — a weekend that unfolds rather than rushes, a sequence of beauty, flavour and atmosphere that gathers gently.
By the time you leave, you feel subtly rearranged. The shift emerges later — in the scent on your wrist, the memory of a cocktail, the texture of a wall, the glow of that balcony. And when you picture a return to Kyneton, Kabinett rises first. You leave knowing you’ll return — not from habit, but because the place embeds itself in your imagination and stays there.
Kabinett and Botanik are located at 24 Piper Street, Kyneton. Should you wish to extend your adventure, the area is dotted with excellent country pubs and beautiful galleries that reward wandering.
