Terminus, Flinders Hotel

THE Mornington Peninsula's status as a gourmand's paradise just keeps growing. These days, the coastal region is known as much for its flash wineries and first-rate restaurants as for its seascapes and wild ocean beaches.

The Mornington-Flinders Road is a case in point. Along its sweeping curves you pass some of the peninsula's finest - La Petanque, Ten Minutes By Tractor, La Baracca and the T'Gallant winery - until at last you emerge at the peaceful township of Flinders, with its low-rise streetscape peppered with antique stores, bakeries, galleries and boutiques.

The Flinders Hotel is the town's landmark and its vigorous heart - a position it has held for about 120 years. Even on a wintry Sunday the hotel's sprawling deck restaurant buzzes with animated groups of families and friends, and waiters darting busily among them. Here, pub classics such as the ''house parma'' and ''fish and chips'' vie for attention with Middle Eastern-inspired mains.

Adjacent to the Deck is the hotel's newest addition, the Terminus dining room - and while it's just a few steps away in distance, it's a world away in atmosphere. Cross the threshold and you are greeted by impeccably courteous but unpretentious staff, the warmth of an open fire and a hushed, tranquil setting.

The room is serene, modern and simply decorated. Tables are set with white linen, sleek, silver, hammered cutlery, petite vases filled with field flowers and streamlined, Austrian-designed wooden chairs. Walls are neutral and offset by panels of blond wood and the plush carpet evokes the patterns of stone and sea. It's an understated room, as it should be, a quiet backdrop to the star here: Pierre Khodja's North African-influenced cuisine executed with classic French technique.

Khodja and the Flinders Hotel owners, the Inge family, make no bones about their goals - they want Terminus, which opened in December last year, to become one of the peninsula's prime fine-dining destinations. They're well on their way.

The Algerian-born Khodja, who started here 18 months ago and whose credits include working in London at the Michelin-starred Ma Cuisine, is making his mark.

In some ways, Khodja and the Flinders Hotel were meant for each other. Both have survived difficult times, including fires from which they rose like the proverbial phoenix.

The Flinders Hotel burnt down in 1926 and took two years to be rebuilt.

Ten years ago, Khodja's heart stopped three times after he was severely burnt in an accident at his former Mornington Peninsula restaurant, Albert Street.

More recently, he suffered the indignity of having his workplace, Canvas in Hawthorn, sold from under him. The Inges snapped him up and here he is, giving the hotel (and himself) a new lease of life.

We are seated at the restaurant's cosy banquette end. To start, we are offered some wonderful house-made bread, brightened by the addition of black cumin seeds and served with a dish of Mount Zero olive oil and two lush circles of house-made butter, one plain, one with olives. A complimentary shot glass of satin-smooth artichoke soup is topped with a puddle of Moroccan argan oil and a sprinkle of paprika and served with a thin cigar of brik pastry filled with mushrooms. The soup is heavenly, but the best is yet to come - a starter of seared scallops and black pudding that is astonishing in its detail, presentation, fullness of texture and flavour. Arranged in a decorative circle are three plump, seared scallops, with a fine crust of pistachio, walnuts and spices, all sitting on the silkiest pumpkin puree. Alternating with the scallops are three dials of black pudding on cauliflower puree. At the circle's centre is a little cube of pork belly on a broad-bean puree. A glossy, caramelly, liquorice-root sauce swirls around this glorious display. It's easily the dish of the day.

My dining companion's starter can't surpass this perfectly forged wonder but it's still very good: a tender, roasted, deboned quail, stuffed with duck gizzards, lamb sweetbread and chicken mousse, and served with cinnamon gnocchi and a crumbed and deep-fried quail egg, on a bed of dried grape jus. A starter of sauteed wild mushrooms, Tasmanian black truffle, pearl couscous and a poached egg is also excellent.

For main, I opt for the hapuka tagine - generous chunks of fish served with saffron kipfler potatoes basking in a juicy sauce, tangy with cumin and coriander, and scattered with mussels stuffed with an almost too-punchy spiced combination of breadcrumbs, tomato, mint, garlic and onion.

My companion chooses the roast rabbit, deboned and stuffed with rabbit mince, sauteed onions, parsley and dried currants. The meat is faultless, moist and beautifully cooked, served with shiny snow peas and baby carrots and decadent bites of foie gras dumpling, but the raisin jus threatens to overpower the dish. It's just a little too intense and veers towards the cloying.

We're back on track with desserts - a Turkish delight souffle with lychees and halva ice-cream has people on a neighbouring table cooing at the mere sight of it.

Khodja's fusion cooking will appeal to a broad church. Even the gent next to me, who didn't seem the type to tolerate the exaggerations of a too-avant-garde chef, was pleased. At meal's end, he calmly announced, with a hint of relief, that he was glad he came.

Food North African/French
Where Corner Cook and Wood streets, Flinders
Phone 5989 0201
Cost Starters, $26; mains, $38; dessert, $16
Licensed
Wine An appealing list of elegant European and Australian wines, with a generous 14 by the glass
Owners Inge family
Chef Pierre Khodja
Vegetarian One starter, one main, five sides
Dietary Available
Noise Excellent
Service Impeccable. Discreet and attentive
Value Fair
Wheelchairs Yes, and disabled toilets
Parking Street
Web flindershotel.com.au
Cards AE DC MC V Eftpos
Hours During winter, Friday and Saturday, 6-9pm; Saturday and Sunday noon-3pm. Hours will be extended in spring