Young gun chef Jake Kellie (a recent Australian Young Chef of the Year) is taking the path less travelled, swapping the city for the far southeast. And that’s very much Pakenham’s gain, because this smart bistro with upstairs bar that also does breakfast on weekends along with the full degustation extravaganza at night, champions producers from the region with city smarts at fair prices.

Though he’s a dab hand on the grill — there’s a good line in Gippsland steaks served with celeriac remoulade — Kellie’s cooking comes to fore through the five-course tasting menu that begins with great selection of snacks — a prawn mousse-filled zucchini flower, perhaps, or salt-baked beetroot and butter — and ends with warm-centred doughnut petit fours. In between there might be rump with kohlrabi and onion, or garlic butter-drizzled fish with sea succulents, or mussels swimming in roasted roo broth of deft depth, all showing deference to produce with the right amount of hot-right-now trend.

It’s bold, unique; a boon for the area that’s rightfully attracting those in the know from much further afield.

Must eat dish: rump cap with kohlrabi