Delicious Top 100! - No 25.

No restaurant better captures the seasons than Daylesford’s Kadota.

Owners Aaron Schembri and Risa Kadota met working in Japan’s best kitchens, and returned to Australia to create their own restaurant that would celebrate the best of Schembri’s birthplace Daylesford and Kadota’s hometown Okayama.

A statement black wooden feature wall in the main dining room uses local timber burned in the traditional Japanese yakimatsu method; with decorative scrolls scribbled by Kadota’s grandfather also featuring.

Visit on Saturdays for a luxury menu featuring specialty ingredients. Your meal may begin with a welcoming cup of warm osuimono (Japanese soup) brimming with enoki, celery, wakame seaweed and shiitake oil.

Each course builds in flavour from the last, with premium Akitakomachi rice coming out before the mains. The short-grain, non-glutinous rice is served in a large bowl for you to choose your own adventure through an assortment of condiments. It’s scrape-the-bottom-of-the-bowl good.

The experience ends as it begins, with a cup of warm tea sweetened with local honey and rosehip. Kadota comes from a place of love, treating Japanese and Australian ingredients with respect and beauty.