Classic Dishes

I think every restaurant that is running at bistro level should have oysters, you should always have steak, but our classic dishes are:

Local whitebait at the moment with piri piri mayonnaise made with chilli from the garden, vinegar, Bacchus Marsh once a year to buy vinegar, good virgin oil made at Bellarine.

Mussels are brilliant at the moment, they're farming them brilliantly out of Port Arlington .

Meredith goat's cheese is always fantastic in the dish, we always use it when it is young, really really bushy and every now and then we'll age some so it becomes like the traditional French farmhouse chevres.

Salads - depends what lettuce we've got in the garden, we've been experimenting a bit with dandelions and thistles cause they're coming on now and lightly sautéed, generally with a good pancetta.

With small goods, I'm really fussy, they only come from Musk which is near Daylesford, and just brilliant.

Always have a couple of vegetarian things on.

There's always some sort of game bird on, often the duck which is very popular.

There's alway some offal on the menu.

Roo, always there, again, very popular.

Always have Atlantic Salmon on because it is a farmed fish and should be encouraged instead of taking from our natural stocks and if I ordered a fish today, it should have been swimming in Tassie yesterday.

The mousse has been on the menu for 18 years.