The past year has been an exercise in patience and care for Jean-Paul El Tom and Alex Kelly from Marrickville’s Baba’s Place, and Sixpenny’s Dan Puskas – the new owners of Randwick’s 40-year-old Hungarian restaurant, Corner 75. During the renovation, every photograph, artwork and football jumper was pulled off the walls, restored and painstakingly put up again. It’s not a museum, mind.

The team has also added their own thumbprint, from uniforms designed by label Song for the Mute to the bathroom walls, a celebration of fruit and blooms and sunshine. Restaurant manager Alice Tremayne pours an Eastern European-heavy wine list and service is informed and relaxed, kind and calm.

Matzo ball soup ripples with schmaltz; meaty Sommerlad-breed chicken is roasted till the skin is deeply golden and dressed in creamy paprika sauce; a fat orange-red sausage is inspired by Hungary’s Debrecen snag; and breaded Borrowdale pork schnitzel is so puffed-up it looks like a set of freshly rumpled sheets. Corner 75 isn’t just this year’s hottest restaurant ticket, it’s also one Sydney’s most singular and nurturing dining experiences.

Must order: Whipped sunflower-seed dip framed by crisp witlof, spears of cucumber and seasonal crudites.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.