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Food and Wine

Regarded as one of the best restaurants in Australia; Lake House is a world class destination for travellers seriously interested in food and wine.

With a multitude of awards to its name – it’s a regular on the list of top restaurants around the country and currently holds 2 Chefs Hats, Australia’s Best Food & Wine Experience, Australia’s Best Wine List (Hall of Fame) and Australia’s Top Ten Restaurants.

A tasting menu, vegetarian tasting menu and full a la carte menu provide plenty of options for guests staying more than 2-3 nights. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a two nights stay to extend – if only to sample another delicious meal from the kitchen.

Contemporary dishes, inspire even the savviest and most well-travelled palates and the Lake House kitchen philosophy of working from the ground up and with the best available seasonal produce means that travellers get a real sense of the best Australian produce on the plate.

The picturesque Lake House dining room – airy and with glorious views by day and moodily lit and romantic by night, serves lunch and dinner daily and breakfast for in-house guests only.

Grab a seat in the plush Argyle Library Bar for bespoke seasonal cocktails. Or in the warmer months enjoy the views from the Lagoon Deck overlooking Lake Daylesford.

Private dining for groups is available in the Cellar Dining Room where the locally crafted hand-crafted oak table seats up to 16 guests. The wine list which features almost 1300 different labels is tended to by a passionate team of hospitality professionals; this is no afterthought – the carefully curated list features some of the most sought after wines in the world as well as great examples of local Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Cabernet.

Produce is grown, picked and harvested from Dairy Flat Farm, their own 38-acre regenerative growing facility, located 10 minutes down the road from Lake House. Five acres of developed vegetable and cutting gardens are flourishing, a planted orchard of 250 trees; an existing repaired olive grove of 200 trees and a similarly attended to, a two-and-a-half-acre vineyard plus a glasshouse and bakehouse. The Farm inspires and provides much that is on the menus, beverage selections and floristry at Lake House. The Olive Grove consistently yields a beautifully aromatic EVO from an annual harvest of 5 olive varieties. The opportunity to work with rarer plants and vegetables and to truly reflect the seasons, adds to the guest experience the ongoing enrichment of the team.

Initially a ‘meeting of minds’ collaboration between Lake House Culinary Director Alla Wolf-Tasker AM and Michael James one of Australia’s most venerated bakers, the Bake House at Dairy Flat Farm is another one of those “dare to dream’ projects that continually peppers the ongoing journey of the Wolf-Tasker family. Open to guests of Lake House and Dairy Flat Farm, the daily bake includes a variety of slow-fermented sourdough loaves, baguettes, fruit Danish, croissants, donuts, and more delivered each morning to Wombat Hill House café in the Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens.

Their offsite sister café Wombat Hill House offers casual country fare in a magical setting in the midst of Daylesford’s beautiful Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens. Sitting high on an extinct volcano overlooking the village, it’s a great place for a stroll or bike ride. They also offer picnic baskets and blankets so you can take full advantage of the seasonal beauty of the gardens.

Lake House: Three Decades On – A Book by Culinary Director Alla Wolf-Tasker AM. Australia’s much loved regional icon of great food, wine and bespoke hospitality, now in its fourth decade, continues with its multitude of top listings in premier award lists. In this book, Alla Wolf-Tasker AM shares her love for the region and Lake House, her admiration for great producers both local and across Australia, with wonderful recipes, captivating stories and magnificent imagery.

Purchase the book online here.

Alla Wolf-Tasker AM is the Culinary Director and co-proprietor, together with her husband Allan and daughter Larissa, of Lake House in Daylesford. She is the recipient of a myriad of ‘Contributions to Industry’ awards, has several ‘Living Legend’ awards under her belt and was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her work in the hospitality and tourism areas.