Kabinett & Curiosities: A Journey Through Kyneton’s Most Beautiful Spaces

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.

Here, every object feels chosen for the life around it. 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 its 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 descends into a deeper, richer world: a bar shaped by colour, stillness and low light. Broad, expressive brushstrokes sweep across the walls in warm, organic forms, interrupted by flashes of gold that shift as you move through the room. Everything appears painted, sculpted and carefully composed. Shelves of amaro, vermouth and aromatised wine run along the walls, each bottle open and ready to pour. Melissa assembled the collection over years, accelerating her search after Covid as she sought out independent makers across Europe and Australia. Her fascination is written across every shelf.

Drinks aren’t hurried. A citrus-bright Negroni might be followed by The Last Word, green and herbaceous, or a botanical pour with enough bitterness to sharpen the evening.

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 stuck 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, tart and electric; Orange Colombo, warm with spice; Sirene Americano, alpine and lifted; La Pêche, soft with stone fruit; Gentiane de Lure, satisfyingly bitter. Every pour landed. Halfway through, I called my Negroni-loving partner to apologise for leaving him at home — a very real and entirely deserved moment of remorse.

Soon, Botanik will borrow more directly from Kabinett downstairs. Melissa and Frank are developing a cocktail list inspired by its perfumes, translating scent into flavour without becoming too literal. Irish Leather might become something cool, green and sharply herbal; Naomi Goodsir, something dark and velvety; Gris Charnel, a drink with spice, shadow and warmth. It will bring the two halves of the building into the same conversation.

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 carried that particular Piper Street warmth, with low light, steady service and the sense of being looked after without anyone making a show of it.

Where to Stay: House of Sol

To complete the weekend, House of Sol sits a short walk away: an adults-only house-hotel guided by the six elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Metal and Ether. Tara and Taras Pearce reworked the 1850s cottage with input from Melissa, who helped source and design several of the pieces that shape its calm, highly considered interiors.

Earth appears in the tobacco, clay and stone tones; water in the curved furniture and softened edges; fire in warmer flashes of colour. Open sightlines bring air through the rooms, while metal introduces cleaner, more architectural details. Crystalline surfaces and small shifts in light nod to ether. Feng Shui principles inform the layout, though nothing feels rigid or overly prescribed.

The effect is immediate. Fabrics have weight, the colours sit beautifully together and every room has been arranged with a clear sense of how it should feel to move through. It is a stay that gently slows your pace from the moment you arrive.

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.