A lakeside town in central Victoria has a new all-day wine bar right on the water. The venue sits in a restored timber building beside a walking track that circles the lake.
It pours wines from small producers and serves a snack-focused menu meant for grazing. For locals, it adds a relaxed spot close to home; for visitors, another reason to linger after a walk by the shore.
Image: Lake Daylesford, by Roger G via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
A new bar beside the lake
The new venue is Leggatt St Wine Bar, at 1 Leggatt Street in Daylesford. It is the work of the team behind Winespeake Cellar & Deli, the food store and bottle shop in the town centre, and it opened on Thursday 17 September.
The bar runs daily from 11am to sunset, as The Age reported in its Good Food coverage. It is an indoor-outdoor space with 40 seats, overlooking Lake Daylesford.
The room steps down towards the water, with warm timber finishes and textured brick walls. A terraced deck sits a few metres from the lake, a fireplace keeps the interior cosy on cold days, and a wood oven will take on braised dishes as the team settles in. The owner says the bar has captured the view, which makes it a spot to finish a lap of the lake or watch the sun go down.
The building has its own history. It housed the Bookbarn, a second-hand bookshop that closed in 2019 and then slowly fell into disrepair. The owner spotted a for-lease notice in the window in May and signed within a week. Locals have fond memories of the building going back to the 1990s.
What is on the menu and the wine list
The list carries around 300 wines, with 20 available by the glass. The team is led by venue manager Marty Hinck, who also comes from Winespeake, and the team includes Katie Cussen and Beck Davern. They can talk visitors through the list, so a first visit does not depend on knowing the labels.
The food is built for snacking and will rotate over time. The opening menu includes wood-fired focaccia, gildas, cheese platters, mortadella skewers with fior di latte and pesto, pate made with duck and barramundi, a hummus plate with confit garlic, and piquillo peppers on toast with ricotta and herbs.
There is a seafood thread through the menu as well, with taramasalata served with roe and radishes, and boquerones bites paired with fresh anchovies, quail eggs and herbs. The rotating menu keeps things flexible, so the spread on offer will look different on a later visit.
Owner Jen Latta said the bar is "a place for people who enjoy thoughtful produce and wines". She said the snack menu will keep rotating because the team works with producers it loves.
The building work was not simple. Latta described a difficult project, with shingles falling off and one problem uncovered after another.
The business behind the bar
The business behind it, Winespeake, began in 2013 as a wine shop and bar called Wine and the Country, founded by Latta in Daylesford. A delicatessen and cafe came next, and the two businesses later combined as Winespeake Cellar & Deli at 26 Vincent Street.
The business is built around small production. Its approach runs to biological vineyard management and minimal intervention in the cellar, and the deli's produce is sourced in the same spirit, with small makers to the fore. The Daylesford shop sits behind floor-to-ceiling windows on Vincent Street and showcases producers from the region and further afield.
The team opened winespeake by the sea in Anglesea in March 2025. Latta's husband, Owen Latta, runs the Eastern Peake family vineyard and winery and also makes wines under the Latta Vino label. The group now spans a deli in the town centre, a coastal venue on the Great Ocean Road, and a bar on the lake.
What else has opened in central Victoria
Leggatt St is not the only new arrival. Three more venues have opened across central Victoria.
In Castlemaine, Table Bar & Bistro has opened at 16 Hargraves Street, run by a former Agrarian Kitchen chef and open for dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. A recent spring menu leaned southern French, with moules frites and a trio of ice creams that included a Meyer lemon sorbet.
In Kyneton, Ruhe is a 20-seat bistro at 58A Piper Street. The name is German for quiet or peace, and the cooking has European leanings. The BYO rule is firm: corkage, the fee for drinking your own bottle on site, is $50, and guests who bring a bottle must also buy one from the list.
In Ballarat, Dear Eliza has opened as a laneway wine bar at 27 Lydiard Street North, reached through Umbrella Lane. It serves cocktails, croquettes and dumplings, alongside darts, pool, shuffleboard and cards.
The new openings add to a run of investment in central Victoria's country venues, from hotel revivals to new bistros and bars.
Planning a visit
For anyone planning a trip, the venue sits on the edge of the lake circuit, within walking distance of the town centre. Daylesford is the administrative centre of the Shire of Hepburn, a municipality of about 16,600 people at the 2021 Census.
The setting makes it easy to build a day around the water. The all-day hours leave room for lunch, an afternoon on the deck or a drink as the sun goes down, and the lake walk starts just outside.
Readers can explore other parts of the state through the Victoria local guide.
Works Cited
Valent, Dani. "Daylesford's Newest Wine Bar Is on the Water and Ready for Spring." The Age, 16 Sept. 2026, https://www.theage.com.au/goodfood/melbourne-eating-out/leggatt-street-daylesford-just-open-20260915-p60xg7.html.
Winespeake. "About Us." Winespeake, n.d., https://winespeake.com.au/about-us/.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. "2021 Hepburn, Census All Persons QuickStats." Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021, https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/LGA22910.
Hepburn Shire Council. "Contact Us." Hepburn Shire Council, n.d., https://www.hepburn.vic.gov.au/Council/Contact-us.
Roger G. "Daylesford Lake Victoria Australia." Wikimedia Commons, 12 Aug. 2014, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daylesford_Lake_Victoria_Australia_(7085530203).jpg.