Flinders Hotel

Score: 15/20

There's a sign above the flash new deck at the Flinders Hotel (yesterday's beer garden is today's decked courtyard, don't you know?), just outside the dining room, providing important advice from management.

"Parents must supervise their children."

It provokes a smug, warm feeling enhanced by a real, redgum-burning fire (one of those clever, modern cast-iron inserts) just beside our table, a very welcome accessory as the thermometer plummets on the Queen of England's birthday holiday weekend.

We've supervised our children, all right. We've left them with friends, five kilometres away. And while supervised kids and families are what the hotel's bistro is all about, we're not there.

No, we're in a small annexe off the main dining area; it doesn't have a sign saying, "Parents should exclude their children from this dining room altogether." But maybe it should. The occasional stray wanders in; there is, after all, just an open bi-fold door separating us from them (and a few dollars on the menu) but blind Freddy can see this is getting into serious eating territory: white, stiff linen on the tables and plates; sparkling glassware and brand-new cutlery; beautiful designer crockery; snappy new furniture.

It says: "If you want battered fish, chips and salad, you're in the wrong spot, mate."

Not that there's anything shabby about the bistro; it's where we sat down and started to read menus before the owner arrived to say: "Didn't you book for the dining room?" Indeed we did.

Nine times out of 10, as a visitor to Flinders nearly always accompanied by dependants, the bistro would be the right place for me, too. But today, sans enfants, the new dining room at this smartly redesigned and refurbished country pub is a rather impressive - if surprising - little oasis: the pub has never looked much from the outside.

The pub was "reborn" - says the menu - in 2004 when former Melbourne restaurateur Matthew Smith (Port Melbourne's the London) bought it and started spending. The arrival in the kitchen last year of gastropub pioneer Peter McLeod (publican-chef at the Hotel Spencer when it was excellent in the late '90s), suggested Smith's rhetoric about becoming a food and wine destination wasn't entirely hollow.

A few months ago, a new chef - Janine Richmond - joined the team with a view to managing the food of the newly created smart dining area. Her background includes time with chef Kurt Sampson at Owensville, in Ripponlea, which explains plenty.

And it seems a good partnership. Particularly if you get turned on by words such as oxtail, pickled lamb's tongue, wild mushroom, black pudding and poached brains.

Of course, they're just words; chefs have a way of using them to create expectations that can so easily leave you fallen from the crest, but many will find what's happening with the food here mostly reinforces the messages of this slightly masculine, slightly exotic, yet plain-speaking list of dishes with their frequent Middle Eastern accents, adding to a more mainstream European choir.

It is, I have to say, a collection of dishes I was genuinely confounded by, because making a choice of merely three seemed to leave so many opportunities going begging. What about the cumin-spiced and saffron-infused lamb broth with oxtail ravioli? That terrine of confit and pickled lamb's tongue topped with a quenelle of duck, rabbit and cognac parfait? The roll of roasted Western Plains pork stuffed with Italian herbs and a compote of black pudding, local Marinda Park cider, apples and shallots? Or the fish tagine, even if the chef's access to locally netted Western Port fish has been denied by legislation kowtowing to the angling lobby.

Another time, perhaps.

Intentions are made clear when the waiter arrives bearing a smart, textured plate; on it is a white linen napkin and, on that, a rather impressive individual loaf of what is clearly house-baked bread with a garnish of black olive. With it, a glazed terracotta pot of sea-salted butter.

"Today's butter is porcini and parmesan," he says. It - the bread, the presentation, the accessories - is a class act. As indeed is a wine list that starts early (in price that is), spreads broadly, shows intelligence in its selections and works hard on the local stuff (without being slavish).

A cardamom and cauliflower pannacotta ($12) dressed with a little olive oil is almost gelatine-free; it is, however, rich and creamy and intriguingly suited to its partner: shredded preserved Persian duck and crushed hazelnuts. Now, I have no idea what "preserved Persian duck" is, but this was like duck ham: moist, pink, concentrated. And rather terrific.

Even better is a baby pink bowl of "ocean trout nayeh" ($12), which would mean something to anyone familiar with Lebanon's kibbeh nayeh, the finest quality ultra-finely minced raw lamb with seasoning and burghul. It's creamy and delicious, topped with a little salad of shaved red onion, fennel and mint; to serve, "jou jou bread" - soft, puffy flat breads.

The Levantine theme continues with a main course ($26.50) of three large ravioli, each filled with the meat from lamb shanks cooked with Turkish spices. They are sauced with a lemony combination of warm yoghurt, chickpeas and broad beans, sprinkled with sumac and splashed with oil. I loved this dish too, although a few more broad beans would have been appreciated.

In fact, to this point, everything was making me happy except the Latin-ish Stan Getz that seemed to be on constant replay.

The other main course has a colleague squealing with delight when described. For the hotel's rabbit dish not only combines marvellous ingredients but is a serious piece of technical cooking to get right. And right they got it.

A massive leg from Macleay, NSW, is partially boned and stuffed with merguez - Moroccan lamb sausage - and silverbeet spiced with more of those Moorish flavours. Wrapped in crepinette, roasted just so, halved and served with a tangy/fruity brown glossy sauce. And on parsley puree, just the other side of a herb and leaf, is a crisp-baked Tunisian brik pastry pie of blood sausage (or black pudding), poached lamb's brain and egg. Bloody marvellous.

Dessert choices are slim. One is a semolina "halva", dressed with clotted cream, a syrup of quince and rosewater and a sprinkling of crushed crunchy nuts and seed.

It reminds us how quickly several very pleasant hours without the children can pass. It's time we resumed supervision. But can we do it again soon?

Score: 19: Unacceptable. 10-11: Just OK, some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13:Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: Outstanding. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.