I have wanted to experience Lake House at Daylesford for a long time. It opened in 1984 and by the time I was working in commercial kitchens in the early 90s, it had built a very solid reputation. It was around this time my parents moved to central Victoria, and I started visiting Daylesford more regularly. It is such a great town to eat in. I had, however, not experienced the Lake House until last week. Thirty years of yearning and I was certainly not left disappointed.
My school friends, knowing my lust for excellent food, had very generously gifted us an evening at the Lake House during our honeymoon. It was a completely sublime evening of incredible produce converted into food and wine so good it almost made me weep. My dessert did make me teary. It was as close to perfection as I have ever tasted. However, I am getting ahead of myself.
Lake House has an ambience of sophistication mixed with country charm. It is not stuffy or pretentious, though it is a place you feel is special and deserves a certain reverence. It is softly lit and very comfortably furnished. I was sat on a settee of grey velvet and the table had a lovely array of glassware, cutlery, lusciously soft linen and a tiny lamp. It was very romantic.
The menu at Lake House is four courses of seasonal and predominantly local offerings. The incredible raw ingredients are transfigured with exceptional kitchen alchemy into a choice of three dishes for each course. I am wheat intolerant, which presented no problem at all, as most of the menu was gluten-free or could be adapted to be so.
We started with an appetiser of octopus with garlic and truffle on a seeded cracker served with a miniature loaf of gluten-free brioche and French butter. I would travel to Daylesford if only for that bread. My first course was Southern blue-fin tuna loin, radishes, green apple, sesame and shiso. My darling husband had a sweet corn croquette, Manchego, late summer harvest “salsa”, jalapeños and mojo verde.
My second course was Fraser Island spanner crab, seaweed enriched Koshihikari rice, mustard leaf and citrus. Stu enjoyed zucchini and tempura flower, herb cavatelli, nasturtium butter with oregano. The third course was dry-aged Wimmera duck, beetroots, local boysenberries, hazelnut and red amaranth for me. An amazing dish of Roaring Forties pastured lamb, heritage carrots, date, lemon and Baharat for him.
The pièce de resistance was the final course. Brillat-Savarin (my very favourite Brie) gluten-free French toast, sultanas, candied walnuts and warm Dairy Flat Farm honey. This dish was a perfect marriage of flavours in my mouth. The taste, texture, aroma, visual presentation, everything was perfect. I am determined to replicate this at home. So beware, friends, you may become the unwitting guinea pigs of my Brie experiment. Stu had an equally delicious cheese and dessert course. Pyengana cloth-bound cheddar, preserved green figs, celery with Khorasan lavosh.
The food was incredible. I could use a million adjectives and still fail to articulate how delicious everything tasted. We had a wine and or port/madeira matched to every course by the lovely Sommelier from Rome, whose name I did not ask, but whose knowledge and service were spectacular. I could write another piece on the wines we drank…if I could remember all the names. The wine list at Lake House is a tome. Possibly the most impressive cellar in Australia.
Alla Wolf-Tasker had a dream to create a destination restaurant in Australia like the ones she had worked out throughout Europe. She put Daylesford on the map and made it a culinary hotspot where it is difficult to find any food that is not worth travelling for. I will certainly be returning to Lake House. It may just become a wedding anniversary tradition.