Australian Traveller | Q&A with Alla Wolf-Tasker

 

April 2024

Alla Wolf-Tasker opened the Lake House in Daylesford with her late husband Allan four decades ago. We mark the 40-year anniversary of the destination restaurant and boutique hotel by chatting to the trailblazing chef about her life and work in regional Victoria and enduring passion for hospitality.

To whom do you attribute your love of great produce?

My parents, like all their post-war migrant friends, mostly grew their own vegetables, made fresh cheese, ferments and preserves. If, on what was a frugal budget, they’d bought a beautiful piece of veal or culled one of our chickens, they’d endlessly discuss how they were going to prepare it. Good food was celebrated.

You returned to Daylesford, where your parents had a house, after working at some of the best kitchens in France. how did that experience inform your vision?

It was the regional restaurants that impressed me. They were generally less overblown. They were also very immersed in their region, in their location. The sense of place was writ large, especially through the local produce on their menus and the relationship between chef and producer. Remember this was the 1970s; there was nothing like it in Australia.

Lake House has accumulated more than 76 chef’s hats from the Good Food Guide and put Daylesford on the map. What’s next?

With the development of our Dairy Flat Lodge & Farm just a few minutes down the road from Lake House, the mothership, we can offer our guests not only the produce they enjoy at our table but also the possibility of immersing themselves in myriad activities. There is now a huge interest in where food comes from. We run regular farm tours for guests who want to dig deeper: classes on everything from beekeeping to cooking and baking sourdough. This sort of experiential travel has the potential to become an important part of Australia’s tourism offering. The Italians call it agriturismo and have been doing it beautifully for years.

Dairy Flat Lodge & Farm was developed to better supply the Lake House with local, seasonal produce. What is the biggest issue facing good food?

Unlike countries with a very strong tradition of gastronomy and good food, we have tended to follow the US model of wanting food to be convenient, cheap and available year-round. Those outcomes are achieved by corners being cut and cannot be supported if one cares about good nutrition and consuming wholefoods rather than processed foods. It will all boil down to what value we are all prepared to put on good food and where it sits in our spending priorities.

What are you most passionate about when it comes to hospitality?

Great service is an ever-diminishing commodity. That, and the provision of good food that encourages communality, joy and celebration have aways been a passion for me. It’s probably true to say that Lake House is my love letter to the industry I am most passionate about.