Just Open: Hawker Hall, Windsor

Can Hawker Hall repeat Chin Chin's success? It's a question restaurateur Chris Lucas is asked constantly. But as his team puts the finishing touches to the Windsor restaurant before its Sunday opening, he seems optimistic.

Having opened 60-seat Kong BBQ in March 2014 and embarked on an ambitious Sydney iteration of Chin Chin, Lucas thought Melbourne was ready for something big. "It's not a mega-mega restaurant, like a Sydney restaurant, and it's not formal, by any stretch of the imagination. But it's a big, bold concept, I guess."

Like Flinders Lane, an up-and-coming strip when Chin Chin opened five years ago, he's chosen an area undergoing a revival.

Hawker Hall combines elements of a beer hall and a hawker market inside a huge 1890s horse stable. Replica Asian street signs with jokey touches – Wing Zha (Windsor, geddit?) – a big open kitchen and a bamboo feature wall add theatre to the space, which seats 160, including 20 outside. An in-house DJ Thursday to Sunday will dial up the good-times vibe.

The long menu scoops up the output of a south-east Asian hawker market, including roti, stir-fries, satay, dumplings and curries, and the 18 beer taps and six wine taps will change regularly.

Executive chef Benjamin Cooper and head chef Damian Snell (ex Charlie Dumpling, Orient East, Claremont Tonic) have tweaked traditional dishes and used good ingredients.

Hainanese chicken rice, for example, is made with poached free-range chicken but the skin has been crisped, and the dessert list recasts the popular Singaporean and Malaysian drink Milo dinosaur (Milo over ice topped with undissolved Milo on top) as a sundae. But Cooper is tipping beef rendang to be the breakout hit.

As at Chin Chin, the only bookings they'll take is for a big table seating 10 to 12. If you want a seat, jump in the line.

Open daily 11am-late.

98 Chapel Street, Windsor, 03 8560 0090, hawkerhall.com.au