Gippsland may be Victoria’s food bowl, but given it stretches from Melbourne’s eastern fringe to the NSW border, it’s an impossible task to nail down a single restaurant that captures the vast region on a plate. But if Paynesville’s Sardine serves Gippsland’s (actually, Victoria’s) best seafood, then Hogget Kitchen has the paddocks covered. Chef Trevor Perkins wears his nose-to-tail philosophy on his chef’s sleeve, with a fridge of ageing beef on show in the dining room and an ever-changing charcuterie selection that is cured in-house (the pork capocollo is a knockout). 

Enjoy maximum mouthfuls with the recently revamped five-course ‘Trev’s menu’, but keep in mind that if one ingredient is in abundance, you may find yourself eating it across multiple courses. On our visit, it was the Jerusalem artichoke’s time to shine, which it did as fried crisps garnishing the Dorper lamb and in a quenelle of ice cream and toffee crisps alongside a milk chocolate bavarois. But the real star was the Dorper lamb (with paddock-to-plate miles of just 5km) served two ways – as slices of tender loin and rolled shoulder wrapped in silverbeet sitting atop a winter cassoulet.

Service can tend towards a lazy Sunday vibe and the dining room is a tad tired, but that lamb, a spectacular local wine list and views of vines with a backdrop of West Gippsland’s rolling hills more than evens the ledger. 

Must Eat Dish: White Dorper lamb with winter cassoulet and artichoke