In the restaurant game, you can have the best of everything but the wrong location will still kill you. A snapshot that’s been repeated in my retelling and imploring of people to visit Bunkers Beach House: a seat on the deck, the captivating crescent of white sand just metres away, the crystal blue of the Indian Ocean tipping the scene into tourism-ad territory; our table under the shade of a twisted, weather-worn peppermint tree.

I’ve walked the beach at Bunker Bay and stayed at the Pullman resort just off it, but I always gave Bunkers Beach House – a beachside café with a reputation for the view, not the food – a miss. It’s the kind of place I’d probably sit and lament a lack of ambition. Installing Ben Day is ambition writ large.

For those unacquainted with Day, he’s one of the region’s most capable and personable chefs. At one time, a sous at Vasse Felix under Aaron Carr, Day went on to helm the now-defunct Knee Deep, then a much-lauded pop-up in the tiny Blackwood Valley town of Balingup, before taking the reins at Aravina Estate. Initial experiences at Aravina were supremely positive, but towards the end of his tenure, something didn’t quite click; the food, technically solid, but a passion once seen now seemed lacking.

News of his departure wasn’t a surprise, but the fact he’d taken on this beach café, whatever its location, was. But then considering the ownership, Fogarty Wine Group, with a wine portfolio that includes Deep Woods Estate in nearby Yallingup and Millbrook Winery in Jarrahdale – where head chef Guy Jeffreys has created WA’s pre-eminent paddock-to-plate eatery – put another spin on the move, and again brings us back to ambition.

Day’s menu is built on refined comfort. He’s got a handle on where he is; knowing people want to kick back a little more than when dining by the vines. Dipping into global influences without it feeling incoherent, there’s a sweet crisp pastilla, stuffed with eggplant and chickpea. It’s well balanced against tart rhubarb and sharp yoghurt. Arkady lamb ribs, meat poised to slip from the bone, are laden with mild kimchi and dabs of black garlic cream; the odd strand of flowering fennel make me think Day has kept the tweezers from his past fine- dining gig. Individually, components work, and together it’s an absolute hit on flavour. Jibes about his chef accoutrements aside, there’s a fine line between location, expectation and ambition – and Day is nailing it.

Market fresh fish is hapuka, but the dish hangs on squid; the base, a roasted squid consommé, sliced rings and crisp fried tentacles adding depth. The hapuka: pan fried, firm and flaky, its skin, crisp and blistered, topped with a hot, pungent layer of XO sauce. It’s changing at every turn: deep, rich and salty seafood elements weighed against fresh, raw daikon and foraged beach ingredients. Add a bottle of rosé, a particular obsession of lauded Deep Woods chief winemaker, Julian Langworthy, and you’ve got the recipe for many happy south-west summer afternoons.