Victoria’s awarded Lake House re-writes the hospitality playbook
Larissa Wolf-Tasker has had a front row seat at the theatre of food from an early age. As a child, she caught yabbies, picked strawberries, foraged for mushrooms, shook dirt from carrots, cut butter, kneaded dough and made pancakes.
As the daughter of legendary restaurateurs Alla Wolf-Tasker and artist Allan Wolf-Tasker, these weren’t seen as chores, simply the warp and weft of her days.
Lake House, 40 years in the making, pioneered destination dining
Sitting in the kick-back library of the Lake House in Victoria’s spa town of Daylesford, Wolf-Tasker is reflecting on the relationship between hospitality and the culture of generosity.
“My mum’s parents came from Russia as post-war migrants,” she says. “They spent 10 years trying to repay their passage so there wasn’t a lot of money. When people came over, everyone contributed to the table. They all specialised in something. Some would brew, some would pickle, some would bake. They’d come together and share food, reminisce about the motherland and talk politics and poetry.”
Larissa grew up in a household where the sentiment was, “If you love someone then you feed them.”
Pretty as a picture: autumn tomatoes
It’s a philosophy that has stood the test of time. This year, the Lake House – in the vanguard of Australia’s fine dining revolution (destination dining, food and wine pairing, and the farm-to-table push) – turns 40. Celebrations from August 23-25 include a Supper Club, signature dishes, gala dinners, and famous foodie faces.
The fine dining revolution
The Lake House came of age in a decade when chefs such as Stephanie Alexander, Greg Doyle, Gay and Tony Bilson, Mietta O’Donnell, Phillip Searle, Mogens Bay Esbensen, David Thompson and Tetsuya Wakuda were setting the world on fire.
Over the years, the restaurant grew to accommodate diners and holidaymakers in pool studios, waterfront suites, villas, a lodge and the country chic Retreat.
Lake House infinity pool on the waterfront
Its much younger sibling is the Dairy Flat Lodge about 7km away in Musk (six spacious rooms) on 15 hectares, 2.5 ha of them given over to the regenerative farm that now supplies both properties, the Wombat Hill House café in Daylesford Botanic Gardens, and a weekly farmers’ market in Daylesford.
This living circle has evolved from a gorse and blackberry paddock bought in 1979 by Alla and Allan, with the humble dream of a 40-seater restaurant that would open only on weekends.
The Wolf-Taskers bought the Dairy Flat Farm in 2018, just as Larissa learnt she and her husband, food and beverage manager Robin Wilson, were having twins. It didn’t stop her managing the project development with her father.
The conservatory with its stunning wallpapers and floral arrangements at Dairy Flat Lodge
“He could cast and weld and do architectural drawings and co-ordinate contract crews. I’d do the interiors, aesthetics, create spaces. The twins [Alexei and Maya] were born in January 2019. We opened Bake House a few months later. At the end of 2019 mum had a health scare. Then came Covid: we opened and closed maybe 11 times.
“But the silver lining was my kids grew up on a farm, picking tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, learning how to appreciate good quality food, ride bikes, feed the alpacas, chase the guinea fowls.”
There would, however, be another cross to bear: the death of her father in December 2022. The many canvases of multi-talented Allan Wolf-Tasker continue to give the Lake House and the Dairy Flat Lodge their joie de vivre.
Prints and textures bloom at Dairy Flat Lodge
Generous to a fault
How to define hospitality? Checking into the premium Retreat suite at the Lake House on a textbook autumn day, it’s clear that you start with generosity.
Kitchen provisions include breads and pastry from the Bake House; not just one but several jars of jam, fresh figs, plums the size of cricket balls, plush carpet, rich textiles, luxury Elemis toiletries and dozens of books.
There are fabulous artworks. Bronzes by Anthony Vanderzweep, ceramics by Bridget Bodenham, watercolours by Franna Pidgeon, botanical paintings by Alesandro Ljubicic and woodwork by Greg Stirling.
A big, colourful hand-painted plate in the Lake House library was a gift to Alla and Allen from ceramicist Bern Emmerichs. Its graphics summarise the mood: dining, delish, vino, roses, cheese, spuds, luxury, cup[p]a…
Ceramics and many other examples of local artwork feature at Lake House and Dairy Flat Lodge
“Even in lean times,” says Larissa, “we put flowers out, light the fire, make sure the house is full of books, art and music.”
Enter the chatelaine
There’s movement at the front door: the boss has arrived. Alla Wolf-Tasker, chatelaine extraordinaire, is seeing the day through a painterly prism.
“This is the best time of the year – all those reflections on the lake,” she says. “There’s a lone fisherman, a couple sitting on the garden seat on the other side of the lake. Everything is a painting.”
Larissa outlines the jobs they both need to do. But, first, Alla is keen to know what we had for dinner, whether we liked it. What we’ve ordered for the in-room feast tonight – is it duck or lamb? She’s glad we are going to stay a night at Dairy Flat Farm.
Alla Wolf-Tasker checks the day’s harvest at Dairy Flat Farm: “Having a productive farm has been a long-held dream.”
“Having our own productive farm has been a long-held dream for me,” she says. “It means the vast majority of produce we serve now comes entirely from the local area. It’s also the next step in closing the loop on the immersive food-focused experience for our guests.”
Baker’s delight
Dairy Flat Farm is country life on steroids, beautifully furnished, full of books and art and a shiny red record player.
Farm manager Pedro Parzewski Neves shows us around. The farm is growing 53 varieties of apples and 25 varieties of tomatoes. Just harvested, almost 700kg of pumpkins that look like something Yayoi Kusama might have painted.
Pedro Parzewski-Neves oversees the harvest for the Wolf-Tasker properties
There are 250 olive trees, a nursery orchard with 460 trees, mostly stone fruits, vineyards planted with pinot noir and chardonnay grapes, ornamental gardens and herb gardens. They agist cattle, while half a dozen English White cows deliver the dairy. There’s a beehive. There are gardens of blowsy, scented roses.
The Bake House is a collaboration between Alla Wolf-Tasker and Melbourne baker Michael James. The daily bake includes slow-fermented sourdough loaves and baguettes and viennoiserie (breakfast pastries make Austrian-style).
Baker Roderick Obrero at work in the Daylesford Bake House
The baker Roderick Obrero is folding, in big white tubs, dough made with golden Queensland Blue pumpkin. There’s a tray of sticky baked apple for the Danish pastries.
If there is a phrase that defines Alla Wolf-Tasker’s legacy, considers her daughter, it just might be “leap of faith”. There have been many.
The lagoon foreshore at Daylesford’s Lake House
Photographs by Gemmola, INKD Photography, Kim Selby
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