Best New Restaurant: Bennelong

"It's Bennelong time," quipped the Fink Group's John Fink, as he welcomed the first diners to the new Bennelong on July 1, 2015. Apart from the puny pun (sorry, John), it IS Bennelong time.

Since Guillaume Brahimi​ baked his final, perfect, souffle at Guillaume at Bennelong on New Year's Eve, 2013, Sydney's ultimate dining space sat unfilled and unfulfilled while the powers-that-be bickered about who was tough enough to take on the tender. You could hear the sigh of relief echo across the harbour when the announcement finally came.

It's hard to think of a better choice of chef than the produce-driven, nature-loving Peter Gilmore of Quay, who has now won three hats in the Good Food Guide 14 times since 2003.

Mind you, there is no resting on your bay leaves with the Good Food Guide, where you are only as good as your last smoked and confit pig jowl with roasted koji, shiitake, konbu, sea scallop and sesame.

Effectively, Gilmore and Fink started with a clean slate at the Opera House rather than just ferrying their hats across the harbour.

"Bennelong is an incredible space, a cathedral really," says Peter Gilmore, standing in the dusty, workmen-strewn interior long before it opened. "It's a privilege to work here."

Making it even more of a privilege was the whopping $1.4 million spent on creating Gilmore's dream kitchen, while local architects, Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, were kept busy making the magnificently austere dining space glow with warmth.

Tom Dixon's distorted copper MELT lamps now seemingly hover overhead, and a shimmering metallic-edged interior runs through three quite distinct levels – the restaurant itself, the mid-level Cured & Cultured counter, and the separate bar area, up top.

From the outset, Gilmore set up Bennelong to be a showcase for great local Australian produce. The $125 per person menu overseen by talented chef de cuisine, Robert Cockerill, is pleasingly divided into three courses. It drops names and places at every turn – the suckling pig is Macleay Valley, the bugs are from Lady Elliot Island, the whiting is King George, the wagyu​ Blackmore, the chicken Holmbrae​ and the saltgrass lamb, Flinders Island.

While the cooking may be less complex than at Quay, it's no less pleasurable.

There is a texturally clever combination of house-made udon noodles served with meltingly tender slices of smoked pork jowl and finely sliced, barely cooked squid; a dramatically presented, whole roasted John Dory, and a show-pony of a baby pavlova, all opera house sails over a snow dome of meringue, raspberry and rhubarb.

The Cured & Cultured bar – while not yet fully understood by diners – adds another, more flexible dimension of dining, starring red claw yabbies served with buckwheat pikelets lemon jam, and a suckling pig sausage roll that raises comfort food out of its comfort zone.

A chef of this stature put to work within Australia's most celebrated building, sets a new benchmark for dining in public places. Lights down, curtain up … it's Bennelong time.

Bennelong, Sydney Opera House, Sydney 02 9240 8000 bennelong.com.au

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