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Top Daylesford restaurants for every foodie’s bucket list

Credit: Visit Victoria

Pauline Morrissey Pauline Morrissey
From lavish lunches to a true farm-to-table experience, these top restaurants highlight Daylesford’s burgeoning dining scene. 

In Victoria’s stunning spa country, there are endless incredible things to do in Daylesford, including indulging in its renowned dining scene. With a focus on fresh, locally sourced produce, many restaurants boast their own kitchen gardens or partner with nearby farms to create seasonal line-ups bursting with flavour. 

Whether you’re seeking a lavish lunch with breathtaking vistas, a modern twist on pub classics, or an Asian-fusion degustation experience, Daylesford has firmly established itself as a haven for food lovers. Here’s a round-up of some of the best restaurants to explore during your visit. 

The shortlist

Fine Dining Gem: Lake House Restaurant
Best Date Spot: Sault Restaurant
Best Farm-to-Table: Du Fermier

Lake House Restaurant

Lake House Restaurant, Daylesford
Lake House Restaurant features elevated interiors. (Credit: Visit Victoria)

Overlooking the tranquil waters of Lake Daylesford, Lake House Restaurant is the veritable star of destination dining in Victoria. Under the leadership of Alla Wolf-Tasker AM, the multi-course fare is crafted from the finest Australian ingredients, much of which comes directly from their nearby Dairy Flat Farm. Guests can opt for an additional farm tour to deepen their connection to their meal. 

For a complete escape, indulge in rejuvenating treatments at the onsite spa – one of Daylesford’s top things to do. Better yet, extend your visit by staying in the venue’s luxurious accommodation, surrounded by peaceful nature. 

Cuisine: Modern Australian 

Average price: $$$$$ 

Atmosphere: Refined 

Location: 2 Leggatt Street, Daylesford 

Kadota Restaurant

Japanese-inspired dining at Kadota Restaurant, Daylesford
Each meal is served in a traditional Kaiseki style. (Credit: Kadota Restaurant)

Blending Japanese precision with local flavours, Kadota Restaurant captures the spirit of omotenashi – the art of selfless hospitality. Helmed by Chef Aaron Schembri and Front of House Director Risa Kadota, Kadota beautifully reflects Aaron’s Daylesford roots and Risa’s Japanese heritage. The restaurant curates an intimate dining affair that combines the best of both worlds. 

Dining here takes the form of a kaiseki-style Japanese degustation, with set menus unfolding at an unhurried pace. Guests can choose between a seven-course ‘short’ menu or the more leisurely ten-course experience, each built around seasonal, locally sourced ingredients, with the option to add a wagyu course for an extra moment of indulgence. 

Cuisine: Japanese Cuisine 

Average price: $$$ 

Atmosphere: Refined 

Location: 1 Camp Street, Daylesford 

Sault Restaurant

countryside dining at Sault, Daylesford
Indulge in a modern Australian menu in a country-style dining space. (Credit: Visit Victoria)

Framed by gorgeous fields of flowers, Sault Restaurant delivers an exquisite culinary journey through its expansive bay windows, which offer sweeping views of the countryside. Its refined modern Australian menu evolves with each harvest, showcasing regional produce, much of which comes straight from the restaurant’s own kitchen garden – from sun-ripened vegetables and herbs to trout smoked on site, paired with a drinks list of regional wines and local gins.   

Guests can indulge in three to four courses, or opt for the impressive seven-course tasting, complete with wine pairings. Each beautifully plated dish is a feast for the eyes – less of an Instagram moment and more akin to being mesmerised by a Monet masterpiece. 

Cuisine: Modern Australian 

Average price: $$$$ 

Atmosphere: Refined 

Location: 2349 Ballan-Daylesford Road, Sailors Falls 

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Farmers Arms Hotel

Farmers Arms Hotel exterior view
Farmers Arms Hotel has retained its heritage charm. (Credit: Visit Victoria)

Steeped in history and charm, the Farmers Arms Hotel is Daylesford’s oldest pub, serving locals and travellers alike since 1857. Whether you’re stopping by for a quick drink or settling in for a hearty meal, this revamped heritage-rich venue welcomes you in with vintage features and a warming fireplace – adding to the pub’s comfort and camaraderie. 

The seasonal menu offers a creative take on classic pub fare. Signature favourites include the duck sausage or a premium wagyu scotch fillet with garlic and thyme butter. Pair your meal with one of their curated local wines or craft beers. 

Cuisine: Classic Pub 

Average price: $$ 

Atmosphere: Casual 

Location: 1 East Street, Daylesford 

Boathouse Restaurant

a spread of dishes at Boathouse Restaurant
The menu showcases the kitchen’s seasonal approach. (Credit: Boathouse Restaurant)

Perched on the edge of Lake Daylesford, the Boathouse Restaurant offers relaxed lakeside dining with sweeping water views across much of the dining room. Warm and welcoming inside during the cooler months, the venue opens out to a sun-drenched deck in warmer weather, making it a favourite for long lunches and easygoing dinners by the water. 

The menu reflects owner and executive chef Nixson Thambithurai’s esteemed culinary background, with a focus on flavour-driven dishes made using local produce. For the full experience, head along on a Saturday evening when The Boathouse Experience is on offer – a seven-course tasting menu that showcases the kitchen’s seasonal approach, best enjoyed with a glass from the thoughtfully curated regional wine list. 

Cuisine: Modern Australian 

Average price: $$$ 

Atmosphere: Casual 

Location: 1 East Street, Daylesford, VIC, 3460 

Bistro Terroir

dining at Bistro Terroir
The raclette is a must-try.

Bringing a touch of French flair to Daylesford, Bistro Terroir is an intimate neighbourhood gem helmed by Michelin-trained Chef Matthew Carnell. With its moody interiors and a tucked-away courtyard, it offers an inviting space for a relaxed yet elegant dining experience. The menu highlights classic French dishes like escargot and steak frites, with a focus on in-season ingredients and rotating mains. 

To elevate your meal, pair it with a selection from their expertly curated wine list, featuring bottles from Victoria and France that perfectly complement the French-inspired cuisine. And the crème de la crème is finishing the evening with a satiating crème brulee.  

Cuisine: French Cuisine 

Average price: $$$ 

Atmosphere: Moody 

Location: 6/8 Howe Street, Daylesford 

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Jackie’s on Vincent

Far from your typical local Chinese restaurant, Jackie’s on Vincent brings a unique fusion of Asian and Western flavours, shaped by Chef Jackie’s Chinese heritage and Australian influences. The cosy, intimate setting, paired with dishes made using fresh, locally sourced ingredients, creates a warm, homely atmosphere that keeps diners coming back. Crowd favourites often include Szechuan pepper calamari and slow-cooked boneless goat curry. 

Situated along the southern stretch of Vincent Street – Daylesford’s steadily growing ‘eat street’ – this well-loved spot is ideal for a satisfying dinner followed by a relaxed stroll through the town centre.   

Cuisine: Asian Fusion 

Average price: $$ 

Atmosphere: Casual 

Location: 1/123 Vincent Street, Daylesford, VIC, 3460 

Du Fermier

dining at Du Fermier
Du Fermier serves meals that champion local produce.

Tucked away in Daylesford’s neighbouring town of Trentham, Du Fermier offers a flavourful exploration akin to dining in someone’s home. With its cosy, French farmhouse-style ambience, this beloved restaurant is helmed by Chef Annie Smithers, who crafts produce-driven dishes using ingredients harvested from her own garden. 

Without a fixed menu, diners are treated to a surprise multi-course meal, often featuring local meats, fresh vegetables, and classic French flavours. With only a few service days each week, it’s wise to book ahead to secure a spot. Opt for the matched wines for an extra indulgent touch, and be sure to visit during spring and summer, when the kitchen garden is in full bloom. 

Cuisine: French Cuisine 

Average price: $$$ 

Atmosphere: Rustic 

Location: 42 High Street, Trentham   

Bar Merenda

the dining space at Bar Merenda
Dine in an eclectic space. (Credit: Bridget Angee)

For several years, Bar Merenda has been a much-loved Daylesford wine bar, known for its curated list of local and European wines and quietly excellent food. As word spread and rave reviews followed, the team expanded upstairs, opening a bespoke 18-seat dining room that allows the kitchen to shine while the bar below continues to hum with its original energy. 

Now home to a sunflower-yellow dining room upstairs, Bistro Merenda offers an intimate, set-menu experience – whether it’s a pared-back two-course Monday evening menu or a four-course feast later in the week, a visit here feels like being welcomed into a dinner party crafted around the very best produce Daylesford and its surrounds have to offer. 

Cuisine: Classic Mediterranean 

Average price: $$$ 

Atmosphere: Relaxed and intimate 

Location: 117 Vincent Street, Daylesford

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Pauline Morrissey

Pauline Morrissey

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This scenic Victorian region is the perfect antidote to city life

    Craig Tansley Craig Tansley
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    Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

    The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

    There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd. In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

    Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

    ‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

    Exchanging city chaos for country calm

    kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park
    The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

    I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

    I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

    The trails and treasures of the Grampians

    sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd
    Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

    Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

    Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles. I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

    walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain
    Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

    There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail, Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

    Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

    “There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

    wildflowers in Grampians National Park
    Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

    We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

    Grampians National Park at sunset
    Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

    The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

    What else is on offer in The Grampians?

    a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola
    Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

    You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

    And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

    dining at Pomonal Estate
    Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

    Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

    The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

    Salingers of Great Western
    Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

    There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

    The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

    Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

    And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

    Kookaburras on a tree
    Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

    You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

    A traveller’s checklist

    Staying there

    Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity.

    Playing there

    abseiling down Hollow Mountain
    Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

    Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors. Visit Wama, Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium.

    Eating there

    steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap
    Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

    Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate. Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock, can’t be beat.

    Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park
    The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

    For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe. Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines, Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines.

    two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap
    Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.