When Alla Wolf-Tasker's mother saw the blackberry-infested paddock her daughter had bought next to the swampy part of Lake Daylesford, she wept. It was 1980, when Daylesford, 100 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, was a decaying backwater and eating in the country meant Devonshire teas or hearty pub counter-lunches of steak with three veg.

Wolf-Tasker's dream, to build a gourmet restaurant, astonished the locals. The council gave her a permit accompanied by a warning that her venture was doomed to failure and she became known around Daylesford - where she and her husband, Allan, spent every weekend for three years building and planting - as "the mad foreign woman" (she was born in Austria to Russian parents, who emigrated to Australia when Wolf-Tasker was a baby).

Lake House finally opened in 1984 and is now regarded as one of Australia's best country restaurants and boutique hotels. Wolf-Tasker admits that if they had done any market research, it would never have gone ahead.

"Talk about the folly of youth," says Wolf-Tasker, who spent her childhood summers at Daylesford, where her parents owned a rundown miner's cottage and other Russian immigrants congregated to enjoy the mineral springs and the European feel of the landscape.

"Australia had no culture of travelling to the country for good food. There were no local suppliers and no trained local staff.

"In the early days, to be honest, it was tough because we didn't know how to run a business. It was madness but we really got off on the exhilaration of doing it ourselves."

Nowadays Wolf-Tasker has a staff of 80, including 10 cooks, and her main role is designing and testing new recipes and planning the menus. She's renowned as an industry lobbyist, serving on the board of Tourism Victoria, and also spent much of the past year writing Lake House, combining autobiographical anecdotes with recipes and musings on food.

In almost three decades as a leading Melbourne foodie, Wolf-Tasker has seen the demise of the overworked French food of the 1970s (anyone for duck a l'orange?), the arrival of Mediterranean and Asian influences, the invasion of British chefs in the 1980s and the decline of special occasion dining.

She's also survived the early 1990s recession and the introduction of the fringe benefits and goods and services taxes but worries that restaurateurs starting out now have a tough task.

"I'm worried that it's not a particularly lucrative industry, it's much tougher now to establish yourself," says Wolf-Tasker, who urged guests at The Age Good Food Guide launch in August to not be afraid to put up their prices.

"The value we place on food and the value we place on service has to change."

She is also passionate about the quality of the food we shove into our mouths. Battery farming practices and transporting food hundreds or thousands of kilometres from where it is grown horrify her.

Wolf-Tasker's emphasis on local seasonal produce - well before it became trendy - came from her childhood, when her parents grew their own fruit, vegetables and herbs and sacrifices were made to buy a better tomato or a better cut of meat.

"We were economically strapped but what we ate was important."

The big questions

Biggest break: Finding someone that could put up with me, really [her husband of 27 years, Allan]. My brain just doesn't stop, there's idea on idea on idea. He's been a steadying influence and helped me channel a lot of my restlessness.

Biggest achievement: It has to be Lake House. We didn't borrow money and have someone else do it. We did it ourselves. We created this from scratch and against all odds. I never take it for granted. Never.

Biggest success: My daughter, Larissa [aged 27, who is in charge of marketing at Lake House]. She's a great human being and I'm lucky to have her as a friend.

Personal philosophy: Probably the driving thing for me is a thirst for knowledge. I learn something new every day. If you have an open attitude to living, there's such a wealth of experience and learning out there.

Best investment: My staff, no question. You can't be a one-man band. When you train kids and they get it, it's like an "aha!" moment. It gives me an enormous sense of satisfaction.

Attitude to money: It helps and it's a useful commodity but that's the end of it. The satisfaction of a place like this can't be measured in dollar terms. If it was about just making money you may as well build units and let them out.