The pitch: Gowings Bar & Grill — three years young and simply pumping every day and night — is that rare thing: a hotel restaurant that stands entirely on its own merits. You can’t see it from the street. You can’t even see it from the quirky lobby of the cool-as-cucumber hotel it’s part of. Yet every day, and night, Gowings does what it sets out to do: attract customers from outside and give residential guests a very good reason to eat in. How it does that is by being accessible.

The reality: Unlike most hotel restaurants, Gowings employs staff you’d find in any of the better restaurants around town. Restaurant people, not hotel people. So there’s a sense of ownership, of being hosted, when you’re taken to your table by a staff member. A bloke enthusiastic about wine. And staff who service the tables like hawks. We like that. It’s noisy, but clubby, too, in a masculine manner, at lunch, anyway. The kitchen is open, the staff attractive, wine prices reasonable and a certain louche kind of mood prevails, particularly if you come over to a table from the raucous bar.

Gowings’ unstated mission statement is: “Let your hair down and enjoy your food, don’t think about it too much.” There are no lessons in Nordic foraging; no unheard-of indigenous ingredients, or smoke (and mirrors). The food is approachable, generous, full of big obvious flavours that please crowds. Steaks. Seafood. Charcoal grilling. Wood-oven roasting. Lots of classy condiments and sense-of-occasion little things that make dining out a buzz. They achieve that by keeping its original head chef Paul Easson (ex Rockpool Bar & Grill, Melbourne) employed and consultant chef Robert Marchetti on the roster.

The cuisine: Classics, reborn. It has been the mantra from day one and clearly it works. The menu is huge, but just when you’d forgotten how good oysters Florentine could be, or crab cakes, a proper Nicoise salad or minute steak, Gowings makes a pretty good case for them. And so much more.

Highlights: House-baked sourdough mini-baguettes served straight from the wood oven with Pepe Saya butter. It makes that first — lasting — statement about intention. The reinvented prawn cocktail, served in a massive ice-filled glass dish, is a slab of Boardwalk Empire glamour, and it lives entirely on the quality of the shrimp and prawns and the expertise of its spicy Marie Rose sauce. The Cape Grim steak au poivre with a delicious, cog­nac-laced green and red peppercorn sauce that will make you wonder why this classic bistro dish ever lost favour. And a cast-iron dish of veal, a red-sauce gangster special (“Old School Chicago Veal” says the menu): pieces of quality meat cooked in passata with black olives and a topping of real mozzarella and basil. Totally comforting.

Lowlights: Not low, but the snapper ceviche (served with crisp blue corn tortillas) is way too acidic — limey — to be really enjoyable.

Will I need a food dictionary?That’s the joy of Gowings; it’s food you grew up with, only better.

The damage:On the whole, very fair.

The last word: Clubby, but for a new breed of chief executive who wants a bit of fun, not foie gras.

Gowings Bar & Grill: QT Hotel, 2 Market Street, Sydney, phone: (02) 8262 0062, qtsydney.com.au

Open: lunch, dinner, daily

Food: Approachable classics with an American bias

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Source: The Australian, John Lethlean, June 27^th 2015