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My dining companion at Voyager Estate was scepticism.

The former chef, Santiago Fernandez, was a star. His replacement, an unknown in these parts, was filling big shoes and taking on a difficult brief. He’s been in the job a couple of months.

Voyager is one of the Margaret River region’s marquee winery restaurants teaming wine and recherche food in the degustation format. Fernandez cooked food with precise technique and polish. Sartorially speaking his food was shiny black oxfords, a pin stripe suit and impeccable grooming.

Travis Crane, the new guy, is more blazer and slip-ons at the races. It’s hard to find top notch chefs these days and at Voyager, the recruitment net was cast far and wide. They found a good one when they settled on Crane.

His food is different to that of his predecessor, not as experimental or as fine boned. It is however as delightful and memorable as anything that’s gone before, but with the top button open, a little more casual, if you like.

One of the three amuses bouche was a crunchy fried mulberry leaf with a thin piping of smoked labneh inside. That’s a confident dish. Can you imagine the pitch meeting: “Well I’m gonna make yoghurt cheese, smoke it and then pipe it inside a leaf from the garden.” And? “No, no, that’s it.” For the record, it was a stunner.

Two more dainty snacks arrived before we got down to business. A tiny, crunchy ‘cannoli’ of chicken liver parfait was impossibly cylindrical and so miraculously buttery it’s a wonder it didn’t split. A single oyster rounded out the troika of terrific tastes. It too was superb, but perhaps a little too icy.

Goodbye scepticism.

Crane opts for the prosaic naming of dishes loved by some chefs: a list of ingredients with no hint as to the cooking.

Venison Egg Leaves was a tartare of Margaret River venison, dressed with a rhubarb relish and a barely cooked emulsion of egg yolks and tangy, funky cultured cream. It was finished with sherry vinegar for a luxurious mouth feel and taste. The entire plate was adorned with crunchy crisps made from midnight pearl potatoes, Jerusalem artichoke and saltbush.

Corn Pork Squid was a tamale, well sort of. Apparently chef had bought some spectacular corn at the Margaret River growers market and he was challenged to use every little bit of it in a dish. He makes a corn oil from charred husks which he stuffs with a mixture of pork, squid and squid ink. The parcel is steamed like a tamale and then grilled to give it more flavour. It’s garnished with a charred corn and kaffir leaf custard. The discarded cobs are used to make a corn broth to finish the dish. Chef even uses the silk as a flavour agent in the broth.

Octopus Pumpkin Shiraz was developed to use surplus shiraz grapes left on the vines after picking. By the time the kitchen picked them, they had gone all raisiny and sweet and when grilled in their own juices, lacto-fermented and then filtered, they took on a meaty, amplified grape flavour. The octopus was braised and then glazed with reduced grape liquor. Pumpkin was pureed and pimped with lemony orangey octopus braising liquid and house cultured butter, then spread thin on baking trays to dehydrate into pumpkin crisps.

The meat course was a ridiculously tender eye fillet grilled on a hibachi. We could go on, but you get the picture.

The culinary heritage at Voyager is in good hands. The food, while different, is exciting. It holds high the principles of no/low waste, local produce and kitchen garden sourced where possible.

And the food is not even the star of the show. Wine gets higher billing on the menu. It is written first for each course in 14pt type and the dish it accompanies is written below in 8pt. Each dish, we’re told, is specifically built around the wines it is paired with.

The estate’s sommelier Claire Tonon is one of the finest restaurant wine bosses in WA. Her bounce-on-the-balls-of-your-feet enthusiasm is infectious. Her humour and happiness, belie an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Voyager product. You will get an education at Voyager, but not a didactic drone-a-thon from a wine wonk.

The crockery is delightfully organic in shape and texture. The room retains its grandma’s sitting room aesthetic (if your grandma was the governor general), the music is barely perceptible and it’s reassuringly expensive. There’s a sense of pageantry about the Voyager Estate experience not found in many restaurants, coupled to a very modern and sincere approach to sustainability and the environment.