COUNTRY-pub cuisine has come a long way, writes SARAH HUDSON

Once pubs could be relied on for a hearty steak and chips, a satisfying lasagna and a parma that could put hairs on your chest.

These days it's all gastro pubs, fine restaurant dining and posh nosh.

The trend is growing to the extent that many in the food industry say this is the year of the gastro pub, with old - potentially derelict - boozers reinventing themselves to reflect the demand for paddock-to-plate eating.

So what is the secret to a great country pub? Is the traditional sticky carpet, local establishment a dying breed and what can we make of this new concept in pub grub?

Here, three pubs - the traditional Commercial Hotel in Alexandra, Daylesford's gastro pub The Farmers Arms, and Sale's traditional-gastro hotel the Star - give their verdict.

Tanya Rusden, of the Commercial Hotel in Alexandra, says the traditional country pub is alive and well.

Tanya, who has been running the pub for three years with her partner Paul Creighton, says they have tried "flashier dishes but no one would touch them".

"We had a rolled pork belly stuffed with berries and walnuts in a jus but the customers didn't want any of that. They didn't know what jus was and wanted gravy instead," Tanya says.

"We had baked snapper but it sold slowly so we replaced it with lamb shanks and one of our biggest sellers has been tuna patties.

"In Melbourne, they might like their vegies al dente, but here they like them well cooked."

She and Paul have opted for traditional pub fare, with the biggest selection of chicken parmiaganas in Australia - 30 in total - from tutti fruity (apricot and mango chutney topped with cheese), to spudarama parma (mash potato and gravy), and even the bananarama (banana, honey, Kahlua, cocount and Swiss cheese).

While their menu, which is changed constantly, has other pub staples, the biggest seller is this free-range parma - up to 150 a week.

"A novelty is always a good idea in a country pub," Tanya says.

"We started three years ago with two and it just kept growing and we couldn't stop," Tanya says.

"But I think there's not much scope for more beyond 30."

Tanya says the parma is successful because it is the ultimate traditional pub grub.

"People come to a country pub and want a big feed and if they don't get a decent portion they feel ripped off.

"They also want warm food. Even in summer we sell curried sausages, soups and stews. It's good country fare.

"A parma is a very Victorian thing.

"You won't find any in Tasmania, Queensland doesn't have many and South Australia hardly has any."

There are four pubs in Alexandra, all more than 100 years old, and Tanya says while competition keeps the publicans on their toes, a gastro pub would not work in the town.

"We've got a town full of farmers and one of the biggest employers is the mill and we get a lot of workers and tradies since the fires," Tanya says.

"You really have to know your demographic and so we try to keep it true to the country.

"And in that way it helps to be an owner-operator too."

Unlike Tanya, Susanne Devine's customers at Daylesford's Farmers Arms Hotel love a good jus and aren't so interested in gravy.

"We make our own jus, a beautiful sticky sauce, which is not something you'd necessarily get elsewhere," says

Susanne, who bought the hotel a year ago after running a catering business in Melbourne.

"And we age all our own beef, which we serve as fillet mignon in the restuarant or porterhouse, scotch fillet or T-bone in the bar."

Operating since 1857, the hotel strayed from its country pub roots and went gastro about six years ago.

Susanne says because Daylesford has a "mixed bag" of locals and visitors, they can cater to a niche.

"It's a strange term, gastro pub, because you don't normally associate gastro as a good thing when talking food.

"But what we do is provide good quality food in a country pub environment.

"It's not a parma type of place.

"We don't need to suit everyone. There's the Royal down the road and they serve parmas.

"People love to come here and be looked after."

Her chef, Michael Dejong, was poached from Melbourne, where he was an apprentice under Stephanie Alexander and ran The Lincoln in Carlton.

"Staffing is a struggle. It's not easy to poach from Melbourne because people have to make a commitment and there's not many places to live in Daylesford if you just want to come up here and give it a go and see if you like the small-town way of life," Tanya says.

Trent Fairweather has owned Sale's Star Hotel in Gippsland for the past seven years and in that time has more than tripled the turnover.

Trent, who first ran a pub in Berwick, says the Star Hotel is a half-traditional, half-gastro pub, to cater to varied groups.

He says a quarter of their sales are parmas and schnitzels alone, with roasts and fried whiting coming a close second, while equally popular is the more gastro, restaurant-style food, such as eye fillets.

"We cater to the trendy and the traditional. With Esso and the RAAF base it's fairly affluent here but you don't want to pigeon-hole your business," says Trent, who studied management marketing at Monash University.

"Gastro pubs that don't want to do the core menu straight away cut out a lot of people. If you go too trendy you're in danger of missing everyday affordable family meals or retirees.

"You don't want to lean on just one sector. If it's lunchtime mid-week you've got to cater to those mothers who want a bagel and a latte and not a parma and a pot."

Last year, Trent won the Australian Hotels Association's award for best casual and family dining pub.

Trent agrees with Susanne in Daylesford, saying country towns struggle to get good, reliable staff, and as such, the Star Hotel trains all its employees, with seven chef's apprentices at any one time and 65 staff in total.

"The problem is no one wants to live in regional Victoria unless they grew up there and so there's a lack of quality cooking skills and staff in the regions," Trent says.

He says because of staffing issues, gastro pubs have to be cautious.

"If you're going to be a gastro pub you have to have a gastro chef and a gastro front of house, and in the country you've got to be careful about being approachable and not being arrogant," he says.

Trent says the winning formula for a country pub is to never take the locals for granted.

"When we bought the pub it was owned by a chain operator and so we could see a huge opportunity," he says.

"It's important to be an owner/operator because you can read your clients, because every town is so different.

"You've got to know the captain of the footy team, you've got to be able to walk down the street and say g'day to the shop keepers.

"If you embrace them, they'll embrace you."

While traditional country pubs are a fail-safe formula, Trent says it's vital to avoid being "narrow minded".

"Some publicans think this is the way we do it because it's the way we've always done it," he says. "But you've got to try something once and even if it doesn't succeed try it twice or a third time two years later.

"There's still good money to be had in traditional pubs. The right pub in the right location with the right service is almost a fail-safe formula."