A leading chef is creating sophisticated food in the country, with fresh ingredients from his own kitchen garden, writes Terry Durack.
BRAE, BIRREGURRA VICTORIA
If, a few years ago, you wanted to sample the imaginative, finely tuned, seasonally driven cooking of Melbourne-born chef Dan Hunter, you would have had to travel all the way to the world-renowned Mugaritz restaurant in the Basque region of Spain, where he worked as head chef for celebrated chef/owner Andoni Luis Aduriz. 
Now, you can leave your passport at home, and head, instead, for Victoria's wild-and-woolly Otway Ranges, home to Hunter's postcard-picturesque Brae restaurant, set on a 12-hectare property in Birregurra, 130 kilometres west of Melbourne.
In the high-end restaurants of the city, where the nearest patch of arable soil is a day's drive away, an intuitive diner can sometimes sense a disconnect in the much-touted "paddock-to-plate" philosophy.
Here, it's a step from the door, in a landscaped kitchen garden, creating an almost visceral connection with the land that is reflected in the daily changing 13-course menu.
So, on the first day of the new asparagus season one of the highlights in the flow of dishes will be a single, proudly green, just-picked asparagus spear, with naught but a baby turnip topped with brook trout roe for company.
Another day, there will be a savoury oyster ice-cream finished with dried oyster and sea lettuce; nasturtium-wrapped parcels of finger lime and sweet prawn meat; or meltingly tender 45-day-aged Tajima wagyu with barbecued carrot and fermented roots.
Small wonder that Brae was this year named No.4 in The Australian Financial Review's inaugural list of Australia's Top 100 Restaurants, lauded for its "culinary sophistication in a country cottage".
One dessert, of slow-roasted parsnip with parsnip cream is already legendary.
The dining room, cared for by manager Simon Freeman, has just the right air of understated luxury. And by early 2016, there will be six luxury, eco-friendly rooms in which travellers from, say, the Basque region in Spain, can stay overnight.
See braerestaurant.com.