“Sometimes I worry we won’t meet expectations, that people will be disappointed,” says Annie Smithers of her humble dining room in Trentham, where it can take months to secure a table.

It’s often said but rarely executed so seemingly effortlessly, so completely comfortably: lunch at Du Fermier really is like being welcomed into someone’s home. Someone’s home, mind you, that has a stocked cellar of lovely local drops and beautiful Burgundies and a damn fine cook in the kitchen.

The longtime champion of central Victoria now has a 23-acre property on which she grows the bulk of the produce she then transforms into four daily-changing courses of comfort executed with élan.

In the cold of winter that might mean a delicate, silken cuddle of cream of chicken soup luxuriously amped with truffles dropped in that morning, and a bitter orange marmalade that cuts through thick custard in a brioche butter pudding that’s one-part old-school, all-part class.

In between you might be served a refreshing salad or excellent charcuterie, followed by a platter piled high with the best roasted pork and a heap of crisp crackling, fabulous roasted potatoes, sharp red cabbage and earthy sweet beetroot puree, but there’s always abundant excellent house-baked bread on hand to slather with too much salted French butter and expertly treated cheese, sometimes from here, often from there.

In terms of the perfect lunch, consider expectations met. Book now to avoid disappointment.

Must-eat dish: Cream of chicken soup