Mister Jennings

Ryan Flaherty is a classic 2014 chef. In learning his craft he's walked the walk, doing stages at el Bulli and the Fat Duck, before co-piloting the Estelle under notable chef Scott Pickett. But then he took a left turn that's becoming more common and benefiting us all as diners. After a short stint in pop-up dinners all over town, he found a defunct Richmond cafe and took to it with a sledgehammer, some mates and a pocketful of dreams.

It's a risk that's paid off for everyone. Mister Jennings, at five months old, has become a definitive next-gen restaurant, as happy to shove a wine and a Dagwood dog in your paw (battered boudin blanc on a stick – carnie food made so, so right) as to dazzle you with Flaherty's skills.

You're walking into a room that would get any graphic designer hot – all crisp, sharp lines, ash-blond tables and little artist mannequins straddling lights. Central to everything stands the bar, ensuring actual graphic designers have somewhere to sit and contemplate the menu's sexy Neutra font while DJ Shadow and Mos Def keep time. There's not a lot of plushness to the place, although tiny accents of royal blue prevent things looking too gallery-stark. Personified, this room is the ultimate wingman – it cuts a nice figure, but ultimately lets the food do all the talking.

Take exhibit A: the frozen kangaroo carpaccio. It's been the restaurant's signature dish from day one, with its icy petals of gamey meat interlocking over freeze-dried raspberries, wasabi avocado mousse and a wine-rich meat jelly. It's the fizzing, popping calling card of a talented chef who uses his powers for fun. There's more evidence of Flaherty's molecular past in the excellent salty beer snack of beef tendons given the dried-then-fried prawn cracker treatment. The giant mellow crisps are planted in a moussey miso cream that makes them taste a bit like Toobs. Bring the fun.

But between the cheffy dishes that allow Flaherty to flex his well-trained guns, you'll find the likes of a whole sand flathead, simply drenched in capery butter, and a barely embellished steak: respectful recognition that Richmond needs a solid Tuesday night restaurant as much as a culinary awakening. 

Since opening in July, Flaherty has been taking the temperature of Richmond and making little tweaks to a menu that came out of the gate with a heavier emphasis on the technique-driven dishes. Now he's relaxed things a little. You can still do a five-course degustation, but there's also more flexibility to snack or entree-main-dessert it.

What really makes the whole smart-food-meets-casual-dining thing work is the service from Malcolm Singh, a Pei Modern expat and one of the friendliest front-of-house faces in town. It's he who might persuade you to take a chance on the Occhipinti SP68 Rosso – a biodynamic Sicilian red aged in cement vats so it's all wood-free and berry fresh – or offer you half pours of anything from a tight list that's both geographically and production-method diverse.

Singh is a good tour guide for the menu too, though there's little dangerous ground – even if you do order head cheese. It's actually just the sweet meat plucked from the pig's skull (usually turned into brawn). Here it becomes a sort of crumbed sausage, served on a brussel sprout sauerkraut and a sciencey mayo of yolks that have been "cooked" through freezing, then thawed and whisked with chardonnay and mustard.

A sashimi-salad cross of thinly sliced raw cobia (a little like kingfish), stacked with wafer-thin shavings of radishes and fennel and blasted with orange dust could do with more oomph. But then there's the duck – pan-seared crisp, perfectly pink, and well met with pickled cherries and the unexpected tastiness of vaguely melon-like daikon cubes poached in milk.

Ordering that flathead is also far from a cop out. The whole fish emerges sticky-skinned, the soft flesh coming easily away from the skeleton in big meaty chunks for running through the bright pool of caper-studded butter.

Naysayers could look at the simplification of the menu as a dumbing down of sorts. But to me, that's where Mister Jennings impresses the most.

Flaherty gets that talent is key, and he leaves you in no doubt of his skills when he delivers the jaggery cake – ragged chunks of fresh and dehydrated anis-driven sponge (siphoned out then cooked in the microwave a la Ferran Adria), dotted with soaked apricots and double cream. But he also knows you've got to read the lie of the land. He's struck that balance with Mister Jennings, and in doing so he's crafted a restaurant that speaks in equal parts of himself, of Richmond, and of now. Thumbs up. 

THE LOW-DOWN
The best bit Original dishes, excellent hip-hop.
The worst bit Slightly stark surroundings.
Go-to dish Jaggery cake – the best microwave sponge of your life, $15.