This season's menu, dish by dish

The new card went live last Tuesday. Four dishes survived the season change, six are new, and one took three months of arguments before it earned its place. Here's the thinking behind each section.

Starters lean cold and bright because the season asks for it: oyster and finger lime stays (it will never leave while I'm here), joined by a scallop crudo with blood lime that the section fought me over and won.

The marron course survived, obviously. The duck changed: quandong glaze replaces the cherry of last season because the desert fruit is at its peak and the acid profile does the same job better.

The saltbush lamb almost didn't make it. We tried eleven versions: braised, grilled, as a pie, as a loin with seven different sauces. The version that survived is the simplest one: roasted on the bone, native thyme jus, charred leek.

The lesson I relearn every season is that the third version of a dish is usually better than the eighth. Complication is a way of avoiding the real question, which is whether the ingredient deserves the plate.

The barramundi has about six weeks before the season moves past it. If you've been meaning to order it, that window is the one.

Something always gets cut early, and it's never the dish I expect. The diners decide: the plate that comes back to the kitchen least empty is the one that stays.