The Lakeside Mill

Pakenham gets a bad rap. Even the local news paints a certain picture. In the week we visit Lakeside Mill, an ambitious new all-day cafe, restaurant and bar in its central hub, the Pakenham Gazette reports a poor turnout at the latest cattle sale and an incident involving a Molotov cocktail being lobbed into the local police station.

Pakenham is more than this. Even so, the hour-and-10-minute drive from the CBD, that in the other directions lands you in wine country or the hills, delivers a beauty only Darryl Kerrigan could love. As you pass miles of new builds and the biggest of the city's Bunnings, Masters and Dollar Curtain Shops, the smell in the air is that of potential.

So, maybe it's not where you expect to find chef Jake Kellie – fresh from the Estelle and formerly the Commoner – flexing culinary bicep with breakfasts that belong in Collingwood and tasting menus featuring nasturtium pickles. But it's also kind of ideal: young chef, blank canvas. Nearby restaurant O My has proved that serious dining has a place at the end of the train line and Kellie, along with general manager Casey Brent Summerville has come in smoking hot with a quality product.

People are impressed, and they should be. There's Hoshizaki ice – the priciest and purest you can get, aside from the Everleigh's – for a very decent Negroni or mocktail; a wine list by Chayse Bertoncello of O My and a hefty a la carte menu encompassing plenty on the gluten-free and vegan front.

Refreshingly, they haven't taken the easy route of Americana or mod-Asian tropes. Sure there's fried chicken, but it comes with fennel pollen and smoked creme fraiche and it's an exception rather than the rule. It's hyper-local, thoughtful cooking, best tried as the five-course tasting menu – stupidly good value at $70.

Just the bar snack-like amuse could be a mini meal. There's a zucchini flower stuffed with delicate prawn mousse and lemon verbena, sweet and crumbly cornbread-like madeleines buckshot with speck, and fat gougeres (savoury profiteroles) filled with tangy green tomato and slightly grainy ricotta.

There are also pepper-dusted pickles, light and cheesy tempura-battered "scallops" of jerusalem artichoke which you would eat by the sackful with a pot of wheat beer, and a steamy golden beetroot baked in a dough cocoon. Dip this slippery sucker in nutty brown-butter emulsion.

If you make the drive, you'll park behind the charcoal chicken shop, rather than next to the jogger-ringed lake. It's near, not on, the man-made lagoon, meaning more distance between you and the black swans (all the better), though the spirit of nature is still captured in the sleek bistro with lots of wood, plant and rope details, with a few stencilled birds fluttering up the concrete walls.

Kellie mostly holds the line between cheffiness and keeping the food approachable. You might be eating high-falutin' meat and potatoes – a perfect waxy spud double dunked in sticky, lemony chicken jus gras, all enveloped by vichyssoise foam and crisps. With it is either a tropical Rieslingfreak No 3 or, a lemon smash mocktail if you're going booze-free. Delicious.

Over-reaches happen, but they're more wobbles you can see righting. Our mussel dish with roasted bone broth and juniper oil, lardo and radish discs is a touch dull, the lardo chewing to cud rather than melting. Our butter-oil with the bread is split, and many mocktail matches are brilliant drinks, though too sweet for a dish pairing.

But then there's a delicate, oceanic hells-yeah of small flathead fillets, nicely cooked with a charred cos duvet, sea herbs, finger lime for citric bang and a wakame butter, full of umami. O'Connor beef follows with a coconutty sheath of kohlrabi and sweet pickled onion petals, bringing some textural interest to the sous-vide meat.

It's also ridiculously generous, but that seems intentional, like they're feeling out the point at which quantity can ease off and the pure quality can do the talking. Some locals still think they're dreamin', but they're in the minority.

The rest are discovering cocktail hour from the upper lounge, and exactly how good their local Harding Orchard apples can be when deeply caramelised and set among a jumble of spiced sponge rags with fennel seed ice-cream. Hint: it's really good.

Pro tip There's a cocktail bar upstairs for pre- or post-game drinks

Go-to dish Flathead with grilled baby gem lettuce, wakame butter and sea succulents ($32)

Like this? O My has led the charge in serious dining in this region 23 Woods Street, Beaconsfield