Doot Doot Doot a piece of peninsula style and substance

MORNINGTON has a serious new player with a less than serious name.

Chocolate, raisin, Pedro Ximenez and prunes

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IT’S in a hotel that unabashedly is redefining what luxury means on the Mornington Peninsula, where rooms start at $650 a night. Yes, start.

There are art pieces and installations representing the winemaking process — fermentation, alchemy — commissioned by the hotel’s Gen Y owner that form “part of the seven stages in the hotel’s narrative”. Its chef comes with a pedigree of Aman resorts and other luxury hotel kitchens, while many of the staff have been sourced from Sydney.

It’s called Doot Doot Doot, for goodness sake.

To say the fine dining restaurant at the new Jackalope Hotel at Willow Creek Winery could be a case of style trumping substance would be as understated as the 7m sculpture that greets upon arrival of the mythical half-rabbit, half-antelope from which the hotel takes its name.

But rather than this Saturday lunch being a procession of terrifying pretensions and the expensively beige to which the unfathomably rich seem to gravitate, it was instead, thankfully and somewhat incredibly, one of the most joyful, accomplished and polished holistic dining experiences of recent memory.

Because for all the high-end concepts and gleaming surrounds, the staff, from the moment we walked into the lobby to the moment we left a few hours later, were simply fantastic.

Welcoming, deeply knowledgeable, patently proud and with the experience to go off script with a knowing wink, they bring warmth and light to the otherwise architecturally sleek, stark and dark dining room that so easily could be frosty in both tone and timbre.

But so, too, could the food. But it, too, was a triumph.

Custard apple, walnut, yuba, miso at Doot Doot Doot.

Guy Stanaway is the young executive chef bringing all that international experience to Merricks North, ably assisted by Martin Webster, who was impressing closer to home at Montalto in Red Hill.

Under an arrestingly beautiful canopy of a slowly twinkling 10,000-globe chandelier, either an eight-course strap-yourself-in degustation, or a four-course choose-your-own-adventure is offered. And while those menus are made up of a collection of Ingredients Without Borders, rather than plundering a superyacht’s fridge of Beluga and Alba truffles and foie gras, Stanaway, instead, creates real luxury out of more humble fare.

Any chef can open a tin, after all. But few would be as confidently bold as to pair delicately sweet spanner crab meat with mashed potato. Yet here is a dish so decadent, so deft, so defiantly delicious it far surpasses the merely expensive. Seasoned with furikake (a Japanese seaweed/sesame mix) and bottarga (Italian dried mullet roe) for a double hit of umami, the exceptional crab is bettered by a velvety cuddle of mash rivalling Heston’s.

Comfort also comes writ large in a plate of soft pumpkin dressed in a cloud of brown butter, the sweet flesh teamed with molasses-like black garlic, crunchy saltbush leaves and macadamia slivers. Stunning.

Simple pleasures abound, whether an autumnal plundering of the vegetable patch served with exceptional goat’s curd and a whey vinaigrette with a waft of orange blossom, or the elegant pairing of King George whiting, char-marked and supple, with a sheath of jamon and a lightly dressed cos salad to the side. It’s assured, confident cooking where less is so much more.

The stylish Doot Doot Doot.

Lamb sweetbreads with local abalone and shiitake ramps up the richness with creamy crunch, the textural heft of the abalone complemented by a scattering of walnuts atop that also add a line of bitterness that’s quietly clever.

And if ever there was a mission statement from such a kitchen that pleasure reigns over posh ceremony, there’s the veal rack, the sticky glazed and roasted bone served separately to gnaw with your fingers, pinkies decidedly down.

The meat, naively tender and blushing, has scant need for the elegantly sharp cutlery, but welcomes the roasted cauliflower puree and flash-blanched peas.

The wine list is equally considered, with the 1200-bottle glass cellar upon entry rather more intimidating than negotiating your way through the selection made up exclusively of wines from vineyards of 11ha or less — the size of the vineyard you’ll spy beyond the lounge chairs on the deck. Restrained in pricing, celebrating the region but also picking up the best from afar,
it’s an excellent collection served with style that’s matched by the Zalto stemware.

Dessert is no afterthought: prune ice cream made from dehydrated sugar plums reanimated with Pedro Ximinez is the hero on a plate of chocolate and raisins, while miso sherbet adds surprising zing to custard apple cream and walnuts. Both are excellent.

This already polished, refined and on-pointe package is $85 for four courses or $125 for eight, and for what’s on offer affords exceptional value. Ambition delivered in spades, the peninsula’s new player has smashed it.

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166 Balnarring Rd, Merricks North

Ph: 5931 2500

jackalopehotels.com

Open: Nightly from 6pm; Sat-Sun from noon

Go-to dish: Spanner crab, potato  

Rating: 16.5/20