For as long as the doyen of Daylesford has been tramping through the hills with her basket brimming with the bounty of the land, has the Lake House been one of the state’s best country dining rooms. Which is to say, as long as most can remember.

But Alla Wolf-Tasker — long a champion of ethical, sustainable, seasonal eating — is not one for resting on laurels and the Lake House dining room, which remains as elegantly stylish for a two-course lunch as it does for the full dego extravaganza, complements food with the right amount of modern flourish. There’s curing and smoking, pickling and milling throughout a menu where technical refinement only highlights good taste.

Country-style hospitality is on show; from the whole cob of warm spelt bread to rip apart and slather with good butter and salt to start, through the comfort of supple pappardelle tossed through roasted chestnuts, the elegance of house-smoked eel with trout “jelly” or the five-a-day delight of a pecorino tart topped with all good things green. And then there’s “the apple” — the dessert as pretty as it is clever that remains reason enough to visit. Not that you need one, when even the kookaburras perched on the balcony look as if they’re on staff, so happily do they complete a vision of country life that remains picture perfect.

Must eat dish: “the apple”