According to the Gregorian calendar and the date stamp next to my mugshot, today is November 8, 2024. According to the Noongar calendar, however, today is part of kambarang: the second spring after djilba as well as the season of rebirth. Kambarang, it’s worth mentioning, is also synonymous with new beginnings.

Once upon a Margaret River Gourmet Escape, Indigenous cooking students from across WA came together as part of the Kambarang South West Aboriginal Gourmet Experience. In 2022, the long-standing Waldeck’s in Bentley changed its name to Kambarang Garden Centre. And finally, the spirit of Kambarang is fuelling the food currently being served at Wildflower, COMO The Treasury’s rooftop fine-diner atop the State Buildings precinct.

Since Wildflower opened in 2015, the restaurant’s menus have drawn inspiration from the six seasons of the Noongar calendar: a powerful statement of intent that reinforced the Buildings’ mission to celebrate all aspects of West Australian culture. (Wildflower’s menu, I’ll admit, was my first introduction to the Noongar six-season calendar.)

Yet over the years, I’ve also found myself hoping for more direct connections between what was on my plate – sharply executed, edible Australiana – and the words written on the Wildflower menu: lyrical, evocative descriptions of the Noongar seasons.

For instance, if the preamble for kambarang mentions the freshwater crayfish gilgie as a seasonal food item, I think it’s fair to expect to see it on the kambarang menu. Yet despite the absence of crustacea, kambarang 2024 marks a new chapter in the Wildflower story.

Enter stage left, Paul Wilson, Wildflower’s new head chef. Although he’s been in the kitchen since July, the kambarang menu is the first that’s entirely his. While Wilson’s CV includes stints at Sydney landmarks Quay and Berowra Waters Inn, its most notable entry is his senior sous chef role at Copenhagen’s Geranium, a restaurant with a rap sheet – three Michelin stars; a World’s 50 Best world’s best restaurant; chef Rasmus Kofoed is a winner of the prestigious global cooking competition, Bocuse d’Or – that verily says: “destination diner.”

Both weirdly and awesomely, Geranium is located at Denmark’s National Stadium, meaning that, on occasion, lunch or dinner may coincide with game day for the Danish national soccer teams or a Beyonce concert. (No such luck for when I ate there in 2013, sadly). Not that the Geranium kitchen team, I suspect, have time to bop along to Queen Bee’s girl power anthems. Not with all that intricate, technically precise cooking that needs doing, anyway.

Among the things that eaters associate with Geranium are dishes that highlight the possibilities and deliciousness of plants. If Wilson’s first menu is anything to go by, our man clearly learned a thing or two in Copenhagen. A quivering asparagus and potato panacotta and verdant broad beans crunched up with crisp swatches of fried sourdough is a picture of springtime colour and optimism. The outrageously meaty savour of the “forgotten carrot” – an intensely sweet, slow-roasted carrot dabbed with a chunky romesco sauce and fine-powdered fennel “dukkah” – is a reminder that, with enough care and attention, even the most commonplace of ingredients can dazzle.

The carrot is also one of the main course choices on the $69 Flow lunchtime meal deal: a more flexible, wallet-friendlier alternative to dinner, which is tasting menu-only and requires guests to commit to a four-course ($140), six-course ($180) or eight-course ($230) meal. Lunch, it’s worth mentioning, also makes the most of the glass-encased room’s location with the nearby river and stern modernist lines of the Donald Bailey-designed Council House among the sights you might spy.

You might also spy restaurant manager, Ryan de Villiers, a reminder of how nice it is to be looked after by a career waiter. He’s composed, engaged and engaging and has a granular understanding of Wildflower’s offering, from the wheat in the miche loaf baked by Miller & Baker (an awnless heritage variety called Halberd) to the names of the dried native plants that beautify each of the tables.

Not that Wildflower’s charms are all plant-based, of course. Raw, finely minced dorper lamb tenderloin shaped into a golfball and served with crème fraiche reminds me of the Lebanese dish, kibbeh nayyeh; shredded curry myrtle leaves lend a heady outback perfume to meaty goldband snapper. Dry-aged Wagin duck breast with a thrilling caper and green olive sauce, meanwhile, has special occasion written all over it, ditto many of the bottles in the heavyweight cellar. (Still, good-value finds such as an oily, lees-stirred aligoté – $85 – from Canberra’s Mallaluka also lay in wait.)

Although the Wildflower kitchen has been led by plenty of strong cooks, the appointment of Wilson feels like a real coup, doubly so considering that the restaurant – one of Perth’s most polished dining rooms – spent most of 2024 without a dedicated head chef. True, we’re only at the start of the Wilson era, yet there are enough signs to suggest that Wildflower looks set to bloom as brightly as it once did.