Charing Cross Hotel

Time was, every local pub had a public bar for the blokes, a saloon bar for the gents, a ladies' lounge for the ladies and nothing for the kids.

Now, there are no divisions, no walls and no age barriers. Walk into the born-again Charing Cross Hotel and you'll make your way around prams and pushers, tall pedestal tables with stools, low booths and powder-blue banquettes as you try to find the ''dining room''.

At least there's a recognisable bar in the middle of the vast room. You stride up confidently and lean your elbow in a masculine way upon it, only to find it set with cutlery and napkins. It's every man/woman/child for him/her/itself, with every zone seemingly designated both drinking and dining.

Yet another deconstructed corner pub in a rapidly gentrifying area, The Charo channels the family-friendliness of the new Coogee Pavilion with a hint of the classy comfort of The Centennial in Woollahra thrown in.

The pub's owner, Warren Livingstone, also a partner in the Balmain Hotel and the Riverview, has installed chef Matt Kemp, who has been hot-desking it around town since the winding-up of first Balzac and then Montpellier Dining Room in Randwick.

He's a good cook who is not afraid of hard work, but he has made it even harder for himself with a 34-dish menu of his trademark posh pub grub. It runs from prawn cocktail to grilled rib eye with bordelaise butter and corned wagyu beef with carrots, cabbage and kipflers, to share. Not to mention the separate good-value bar menu of burgers, house-baked beans on toast and roast chicken dinner pies, and the four different Sunday roasts served with ''proper, and I do mean proper, roast tatties like Matt's mum makes''. Cute.

Also cute are the pig's head croquettes ($14), for which Kemp slow-braises a pig's head until it's soft and brawny, then shreds and forms it into lush fingers that are crumbed and fried until crisp, and served with a salsa-like piccalilli.

There's the obligatory raw fish dish of cubed ocean trout ($16), tossed with red peppers, black olives, heart-shaped wood sorrel, and a few pale pink shrimps that seem to be there more as menu bait. A slow-braised shoulder of lamb nicoise ($28) is well-cooked and satisfying, but the accompanying fregola is soft baby food, and juices are thin. Spaghetti is nicely garlicky, studded with choppy bits of cuttlefish and a little crab and chilli ($25).

The stand-out for our table is the simplest dish – a side of peas ($8); freshly podded and tossed in spoonfuls of buttery juices with jamon-like cubed bacon and wilted lettuce.

A slightly ambitious old world/new world wine list runs to a juicy, plummy, peppery ''La Griffe'' Cotes du Rhone 2009, with a curious mouth-feel bordering on frizzante ($79). Service is on the shambolic side and I feel sorry for the kitchen having to feed not just the ''dining room'', but the entire place at random.

It takes a while for my neighbour's pear, rhubarb and blackberry crumble to arrive so I choose a ready-made peach, raspberry and champagne trifle with white chocolate ($14) instead, with a lovely jelly in there somewhere under an avalanche of cream.

The Charo is already packed, with a happy, raucous crowd. It isn't brilliant yet, but given more time for the staff to settle in – and perhaps a bit more support for the kitchen – it could bring new life to both Waverley and to the future of the corner pub.

THE LOW-DOWN
Best bit: Corner pub as community drop-in centre.
Worst bit: ''How's your day been so far?''
Go-to dish: Crispy pig's head and piccalilli $14.

Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for the Good Food Guide. This rating is based on the Good Food Guide scoring system.