Victoria's Seasons on a Plate
Truffle winters to oyster summers — the harvest calendar that writes our menu four times a year.
The menu reprints six times a year — the seasons insist, we just obey.
June to August belongs to Manjimup truffle — the most requested dinners of the year.
Ninety-seven percent of the menu travels under 400 kilometres to reach the fire.
The kitchen's real calendar
Our menu doesn't change because we get bored — it changes because the larder does. Victoria's growing calendar divides the year into four distinct pantry seasons, and a kitchen that ignores them is just fighting the weather.
Summer belongs to the ocean and the terrace — raw bar towers, crudo nights, oysters on ice until late. Autumn brings game and mushrooms. Winter is truffle country — Manjimup black truffle lands by overnight courier from June and the dinner series sells out weeks ahead. Spring is lamb and green everything.
A tomato in January and a tomato in July are different ingredients. The menu knows the difference; so should you.
Elena Vasseur, Executive Chef
Where it all comes from
The farm line: O'Connor beef from Gippsland, vegetables from Musk's Farm at Daylesford, dairy from Bridgewater — all inside a morning's drive. The ocean line: Corner Inlet and Mooloolaba day boats, eighteen hours from catch to ice.
The airfreight line is deliberately short: Manjimup truffle in season, Tasmanian wasabi, King Island cream — items that justify the flight. Everything else is a decision against it; the menu's provenance is printed on the back page, where it belongs.
Four takeaways
The short version, for the notes app.
Eat with the calendar — truffle in winter, oysters in summer, lamb in spring.
The daily board is the true menu — written at 6am from whatever shone at market.
Seasonal events sell early — the truffle series especially.
Ask what's in season — the kitchen's answer will be better than the menu's.
Eat the season you're in
The events calendar tracks the harvest year — truffle dinners June through August, seafood summer on the terrace, the lamb series in spring.
Or simply book and ask the waiter what's at its best right now — the answer changes weekly and the kitchen loves the question.
Elena Vasseur
Executive Chef — plans the menu year around harvests, never around trends.
More from the journal
Quick answers
Taste this season
The menu is whatever the week is giving — book while this one lasts.