Around this time last year I enjoyed reading an article from Melbourne journalist Andrew Masterson, on the “locavore” food movement (check it out here ). Locavores aim to source as much of their food as possible from as close to home as they can. From his home base in central Victoria, Masterson tells of his family’s self-imposed experiment to eat locally for seven days and describes the challenges and rewards they met during that week.

The article caught my attention for a number of reasons, not least of which because I’m passionate about food! Have I mentioned that I’m passionate about food? The MOTH has suggested I’m obsessed but we’ve agreed to differ on terminology. The other hook was timing: literally a couple of weeks earlier we’d sealed the deal to buy our own place in central Victoria so I was enthused by the useful food sources detailed in the commentary. I made mental notes of lots of them but one in particular caught my fancy: Tuki Trout Farm at Stoney Rises – a large farming property near Smeaton, just east of the renowned mineral spa town of Daylesford. Tuki offers catch-your-own trout activities for families – you can take them home or they’ll cook them for you (the trout, not the families). There’s also top quality beef and lamb, cottage accommodation for a luxurious retreat, and a licensed restaurant that showcases all their marvellous produce. I had it firmly ear-marked for a visit once we got ourselves settled at Buninyong.

After an early (I mean really early) start to deliver house guests back to the airport on the outskirts of Melbourne yesterday, we decided not to come straight home but to spend time discovering a chunk of the nearby countryside. We spent the morning strolling around the Daylesford township (predictably dropping in to Wombat Hill Nursery, where we adopted another litter of native trees and shrubs for our ever-expanding bush planting), then turned the car homewards and hoped to find a worthy spot along the way to satisfy a well-developed lunch appetite.

Trundling along narrow, rain soaked roads we passed a sign pointing to Tuki Trout Farm and decided it was time for that long-promised visit. The farm is very much a working property; if we’d been in any doubt, the long drive from the gate of the property to the stable building that houses the restaurant would have convinced us. Grazing sheep, iconic windmills, remnant timber cattle ramps and yards – all offered irresistible photo opportunities. With blue skies and fluffy white clouds in one direction and magnificent, moody grey storm skies in another, it was a feast for the eye and the lens.

The late Don Jones lived on Stoney Rises from the 1940s and his wife and children created the Tuki concept when they opened the farm to guests as a trout fishing venue in 1985. The name came from the Tukidale sheep grazing the farm at that time. During the 1990s a number of stone cottages were constructed to provide guest accommodation. Don’s son Robert and his wife Jan still live there and run Tuki, with help from their sons David and Alistair. When we called to check they had a table available, Alistair responded with “I’ll let Mum know you’ll be here soon.”

Mum Jan greeted and seated us and brought us chilled local beer and white wine, along with the menu. I love a restaurant that has what I call a focussed menu and Tuki’s is precisely that: they offer only three appetisers, all centred around their amazing trout, hot smoked to tantalising deliciousness, and their Tuki lamb smoked sausage – a cured delight somewhere between kabana and chorizo. Only three mains are offered too: fresh baked rainbow trout, Tuki lamb tenderloin fillets or a variety of Tuki steaks.

Now, we’d heard good things about the Tuki lamb and beef but trout was what we had in mind. We shared the smoked trout pate for starters – light and fluffy with a hint of horseradish, and a generous serve of crackers to spread it on. The portion was perfect for two and tasted divine. The fresh baked trout was a no-brainer choice for our mains and we later learned that when they say fresh, they mean fresh – after we ordered, chef Robert popped out and caught our two fish, seasoned them, and wrapped them in foil for their rendez vous with the oven. From hook to oven was just ten minutes, Robert told us as he presented a tray bearing the two silver packages and left them to rest for a few minutes. When he returned he skilfully deboned them with two Bar-b-Mates, slid the delicate pink fillets onto our plates and drizzled them with the flavour drenched oil and juices from the foil.

Eating those trout was practically a religious experience – they were exquisite. Flavoursome, cooked to perfection and redolent with the beautiful spring water they were so recently swimming in. A squeeze of lemon and a trickle of creamy, home-made, crushed green peppercorn dressing made for a heavenly taste. This amazing fish needed nothing more than locally grown potatoes and a mixed salad to accompany it. Oh, except perhaps the scrumptious, locally baked bread. There was that!

We didn’t really have room for dessert but bravely decided we could probably manage to share a serve of the Lemon Syrup Cake (“a rich butter cake drowned in a citrus syrup, cream and ice cream”) with some plunger coffee. We ought to have been grateful when Jan told us she had just run out of the lemon cake but we merely saw it as a good reason to return soon 🙂

Tuki sells all its produce on site and we came away with our own smoked trout, a stick of the rich, red, smoked lamb sausage and a handsome pair of racks of lamb, nestled together like a cathedral skeleton. Robert seems to be everywhere and yet never appears pressured, always having time to chat as he serves your trout, takes you to the butchering cool room to see which cuts of beef and lamb are available that day, and even providing tips on getting the most succulent lamb rack with a crispy skin. The friendly and easy-going hospitality is as good a reason to go back as the food itself. The view from our table, across the trout ponds and over magnificent farming land, rounded out the spotless experience.

From the pond to the pan, from the paddock to the plate – the Tuki website points out that there are no food miles when you dine there. And luckily for us, there are still very few when we bring their exquisite produce to dine on at home. The locavores would surely approve 🙂

Check out Tuki here.