There’s a bit going on here. Fishing rods. Hand-reels. Antique lures. Vintage navy plaques adorned with a penguin, platypus and waterhen. Not that we expected anything less from the Continental Deli team and their recent Newtown expansion which also includes meat-forward Osteria Mucca next door.

Mans Engberg leads the kitchen and sends out clever flavour-packed dishes such as cuttlefish tangled with young coconut, grilled calamari teamed with ink sauce and chestnut mushrooms (it works), and pipis served in a froth of vermouth and samphire with steaming, pull-apart cornbread.

Chef Lauren Eldridge is on dessert duties across the four Australia Street sites, and at Mister Grotto she remixes the After Eight mint into a beautiful lobster-shaped mould starring white chocolate, salted caramel and a Fisherman’s Friend-based tincture, while a swirling tower of buttermilk soft serve is dolled up with fig compote and gold-standard honeycomb.

Must order: Shallow-fried shishito peppers stuffed with sausage made from the bloodline of tuna. Few snacks will pair better with cold sake.

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