Alla Wolf-Tasker is sitting in the dining room at Lake House, the Daylesford destination she founded with her late husband Allan, 40 years ago. That she’s occupying a table is unusual. She can’t remember the last time she ate in her own restaurant. But our topic is legacy, and the way women build it, and Wolf-Tasker decides the best way to chew it over is literally, during a lunch with daughter Larissa, just three years old when her parents founded the business and now Lake House’s brand manager.
Our table of three discusses all kinds of things: unseasonal pine mushrooms springing up after summer rains, the peacock that visited Wolf-Tasker after her beloved Allan passed away in 2022, the beauty of broccolini shoots and – as so often happens when speaking with successful women – imposter syndrome. “Early on, I went through a terrible period where if the mise en place [kitchen preparation] wasn’t right, I didn’t know how to tell the chefs,” she says. “So I would get up at three o’clock in the morning and replace it all.”
Lunch is a parade of produce and technique, service is unobtrusive and expert, a little wine is poured. We tear into sourdough made at the in-house bakery. The kitchen’s deep purple duck ham is furled alongside heirloom beetroot grown just up the road at the family’s Dairy Flat Farm. Lamb as pink as sunset sits in a jus so bright the chandeliers are reflected in it. A kookaburra lands on its special perch on the veranda, awaiting the eye fillet entrusted to delighted guests to dispense. Every morsel and marvel is testimony to Wolf-Tasker’s vision, determination and refusal to listen to naysayers. “In the 1980s, they called me the little foreign woman down by the lake,” she says. Without doubt, Daylesford’s transformation from potato paddocks into wishlist getaway is due to the ever-developing example of Lake House, which now employs 120 people. Appropriately, in 2007, she was named a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to regional tourism and hospitality.
An icon if ever there was one, she demurs at the idea. Her menu begins modestly, “Welcome to our house on the lake” and Alla is listed as culinary director, alongside head chef Brendan Walsh. “People ask me to put my chef’s coat on and sashay around,” she says. “But I never do. I can’t claim to have cooked the food. I may have been involved in the notion of the food and the design of the food and the conversations about the food and what we’re growing to make the food but I just cannot take the credit.” We ponder other chefs – male ones – and whether they would have the same reluctance.
Is there a difference in the way men and women run restaurants? “From my perspective, Lake House came from you wanting to share your vision of hospitality as a refined extension of a country home,” says Larissa. “We wanted people to be comfortable, to share food and foster relationships. That is a very female drive, bringing people together around the table and creating community.” Although Lake House keeps changing, there’s consistency to carry into the next 40 years. “The vision is the same,” says Larissa. “We have this living, breathing beast that keeps expanding but the continuity allows us to bring other people – men and women – along for the ride.”
Judy McMahon of Catalina
Why tend one business rather than expand? “Building an empire makes economic sense,” says Wolf-Tasker. “You get the economic benefits of centralising HR, admin, insurance. But very few women, I think, calculate like that. It’s very much, Was that a great service? You don’t often hear them pulling apart the taxation situation. That’s not necessarily good but you can’t own seven restaurants and put your heart and soul into every one. I think women do hospitality differently, it’s almost a need, you can’t be at arm’s length. I tend to be Mother Superior and social worker here: I know who owns a dog, who’s had a relationship breakup. Does it make me a better boss? Not necessarily, but it helps you understand the people you’re working with.”
Judy McMahon has been in hospitality since the late 1970s, mostly alongside her late husband Michael, who died in 2020. The pair founded Catalina at Rose Bay in Sydney 30 years ago. ”My husband was the name,” says McMahon. “He was interviewed, featured but I was always there, in the background keeping the wheels turning.” Fifteen years ago, Michael started suffering health issues. “It was my opportunity to take the bit and run with it.” She believes women tend to be brave. “My experience of husband and wife hospitality teams of a certain vintage is that women are far more open to new ideas than men, who are often the chefs. The machine is the two of them working together: the women paving the way and the men getting the attention and the accolades.”
She implemented changes that were radical in 2009: an electronic bookings diary, a database, marketing emails. “As these things worked, I developed confidence,” says McMahon. “I turned our business around.” She also steered the culture at Catalina. “I’ve developed a workplace where people feel valued and listened to,” she says. “Often, male leadership was ‘my way or the highway’ but I’m a mother. You have to work out a way of problem-solving that doesn’t crush someone.”
Chef Jan McKenzie of Cafe Sydney
Cafe Sydney will celebrate 25 years this year, 24 of them under the management of Jan McKenzie. She came to the role with years of food and beverage experience in Adelaide, Hong Kong and London. “Hospitality is rewarding, diverse, it makes you dig deep on so many levels of your existence,” she says. The industry is more welcoming for women than it was when she started but it’s still not easy. “I feel powerful now but as a younger woman I felt I had to constantly prove myself,” she says. “Now I feel I have mutually respectful relationships with men. I would like to think we’re at a point where equality rules and women have a natural path to success.”
Why has she stayed at Cafe Sydney for so long, rather than build an empire? “I had a family,” she says. “I made that choice.” But also, “I want to be deeply connected, almost obsessive. Other people – male or female – might not need that.” She believes there’s something in the idea of women going deep rather than restlessly seeking new challenges. “There are few men that have that attention to detail, looking at every surface, in every corner.” Renewal comes from within. “I hear people say they cannot believe Cafe Sydney’s been open for 25 years. But it keeps getting refreshed: I’m French polishing now. Every surface has been done over 10 times. There’s freshness in having 150 staff, aiming year on year to keep fine tuning and get better.”
It was Swain who convinced Romeo she was ready to be a restaurateur nearly 20 years ago. “He was sure of himself, all I knew is that I loved the industry,” she says. “When we opened, media would always write about the food. I had to step up and say, ‘Hello, here I am, it’s not just about the chef, it’s about the experience.” Romeo considers whether her passion for service is about nature or nurture. ”I don’t think it’s gender, necessarily, but women are socialised to be attuned to others’ needs, customers and team members,” she says. “I’m a big believer in intuitive service: it’s hard to teach and I know I have it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman. Is it personality, is it because I studied psychology and know if a customer is anxious or wants to impress?”
Back at Lake House, Wolf-Tasker takes a snap of a dish she plans to discuss with her chef: might there be a different way to plate the beef and artichoke that encourages diners to taste all elements at once? These days, she’s beyond sneaking into the kitchen to redo prep. “Brendan is impeccable, he has great craft,” she says. “We have a conversation and next minute, it’s different. That’s how it works.”
