There’s the exhilarating buzz of a busy service, the elegant dance around a bustling dining room and the athletic ballet/tragic opera of the professional kitchen that gets under the skin. Not to mention the food and drink that makes up the day-to-day.

We’re all the richer for having those experienced hands with a head full of smarts and skin in the game still giving it a go.

Operators such as Simon Bevanda who, after time away from running his own places (actual gardening leave) has returned with the fabulously named The Surly Goat.

It was, Simon says, the lure of taking over a space he’d long coveted — just off the main drag, overlooking the leafy gully that drops away to Hepburn’s famous springs down below — that got the blood pumping and had him jumping on the crazy hospo merry-go-round for one last ride.

There are pubs in Simon’s blood. You can almost chart the gastropub’s march through the city with his CV. From the All Nations in Richmond in the ’90s, through Hotel Spencer to Carlton’s Hotel Lincoln — and more recently with the Farmer’s Arms in Daylesford — he’s long known and nailed the formula of good food selling good booze.

With partner Vanessa Kalamistrakis the duo took over what was a cosy little cafe and added a main feature bar, to which locals come to sit at while tackling both a bowl of pasta and the issues of the day with their amiable hosts.

Sean Marshall in the kitchen is turning out the type of fare you’re glad to see in a region that’s the biggest kitchen garden around. He knows how to hit the sweet spot of accessible value, having launched Fitzroy’s Hell of the North and Daylesford’s Belvedere Social.

It’s simple, unfussy but defiantly tasty stuff that bashfully hides how clever it is under the cloak of humility the country wears well.

Things like the little panko-crumbed croquettes that are full of beef and chunky potatoes, tanned crunchy and crisp and served with a splotch of kewpie and a squiggle of sticky plum sauce that put 100 city versions to shame ($10).

Or a classic steak tartare, a saucer-sized round of nicely seasoned, caper-rich hand chopped beef. A lightly dressed salad and a generous handful of chips complete the best $10 you could hope to spend.

I realise it might seem to be damning with faint praise — but oh my goodness, the chips! Golden fat fingers with the crunch-fluff factor just right, they’d be great with just a shake of good salt, but these are seasoned with rosemary and roasted garlic while a grating of melted parmesan adds the right note of sharp salt. A big bowl of these beauties is just seven bucks. Outrageously, dangerously, good.

While you almost can’t move in Melbourne at the moment without bumping into burrata, it’s seen here in new light.

Taking the very best of the late season’s harvest, a medley of green, red and yellow tomatoes sing of the sun and are positively busting with eye-opening flavour. With char-marked, garlic rubbed sourdough and all that slightly sharp creamy curd from the pouch of burst mozzarella and you have another plate of country style ($10).

Though wines by the glass aren’t poured at the table — pub habits die hard — cutlery is hefty, napkins are linen and the view from the dining room across the treetops makes for a fine scene.

The wine list shows due deference to the region — Macedon riesling and pinot, Daylesford chardonnay, a Bendigo shiraz — while not hamstrung by it, for sometimes there’s nothing quite like an Alsatian riesling or a Montepulciano, especially when nothing tops $50 a bottle or $10 a glass.

Bigger dishes, such as two large pieces of slow-cooked lamb served on a mound of buttery faro with a zucchini dice and caper-y salsa verde, are big-hearted and generous to a fault ($32). And if the thick fillet of barramundi was ever-so overdone, it was saved and then some by its accompanying yabby sauce of assured balance and depth, blanched chard and al dente stalks completing another excellent idea ($32).

Like many, I suffer from realestatewindowitis particularly when wandering through country towns. But damned if The Surly Goat isn’t everything you’d wish for as a local in this very lovely part of the world. Spa country has another delicious reason to visit.

This review originally appeared on heraldsun.com.au.