Glorious food matches the view at The Imperial Hotel in Clifton

The Imperial Hotel, a grand 112-year-old clifftop pub tucked below the brooding Illawarra escarpment, perches above the sea on a narrow, curving coastal road.

It looms like a giant white Edwardian wedding cake, almost out of place between the dark tree-covered slopes, vast ocean views and crashing waves below the tiny village of Clifton.

An older pub once sat here, built in 1884 to cater to local coal miners, before being demolished in 1910 for a new building. Its history includes stints as a local court, a preliminary resting point for bodies rescued from sea and mining accidents, and as a home for an elderly parrot named Mickey who collected coins with his beak for charity.

It also spent 20 years vacant, deteriorating and graffitied before being bought by the Shellharbour Club from the WIN Corporation in 2015.

After a years-long restoration project, the Imperial is open again with a meticulous mix of modern and traditional across three floors. It is worth a long, slow inspection because this is no bland, hurried gussy-up.

Many of the pub's old features have been saved or brought back, including decorative arches, the original front verandah, a carved timber staircase and the front bar lined with marbled-honey tiles. There are five original working fireplaces, particularly cosy if you're in one of the front parlour's deep armchairs, and displays of century-old glass and ceramic bottles and fragments of a 1911 newspaper found on site.

Take the lift down, or descend the new central stairway, to a mural showing former workers. Loos feature cards suggesting customers appease the ghost of Emily, wife of licensee George Miller, who died in 1914 but loved a clean bathroom. Her opinion on the Imperial's lustily piped music in the toilet cubicles is urgently requested.

Upstairs, glass doors leading to the front bear the painted words: "Visitors will find this hotel up to date in every convenience and comfort, good attendance; good table; fine position, overlooking the ocean." It is the latter that drives us to a table overlooking the grey-green sea. Through huge windows in the new rear dining room, freighters pass in the distance as dusk turns the ocean green, its peaks flecked white by gusty winds.

It's half an hour until closing, but food comes speedily. The Imperial's menu is heady stuff. You can breakfast with French toast, granola, smoked trout and boiled eggs, or linger for lunch and dinner with dishes ranging from focaccia to chicken ribs, polenta chips, calamari, burrata, prawns, antipasto, whitebait, Jervis Bay mussels, a tiger prawn roll, chicken schnitzel and char-grilled Angus beef.

The salt-and-pepperberry whitebait are crunchy and golden, the barbecue chicken – a huge slab of poultry slicked with dark, rich zhoug – is good stuff and I would walk the winding jagged cliffs outside to eat the glorious sweet, nutty beets and peaches salad again.

The butter bean hommus, with dukkah and charred bread, is good but the winner is a dessert: a white chocolate ice-cream on a stick, dotted with hundreds and thousands, with banana segments and custard and topped with a wig of pink fairy floss.

The hefty bar – which offers wine, beer and signature cocktails, including a fine Espresso Imperial, a Bloody Mary served in a tabasco can and an excellent coconut mocktail – is slowly quietening.

The Imperial's free shuttle bus, which delivers locals and tourists to eight village suburbs along the coastal road, is waiting as people wander outside to stare at the moon reflected on the waves.

We follow, eventually driving across the dramatic Sea Cliff Bridge, just past the tiny Clifton School of Arts, also built in 1911.

A trip to the Imperial is a journey into history and a welcome return for a building brimming with vim and detail. Get a seat looking out at the sea and pack ear plugs for a tinkle.

The low-down

The Imperial Hotel

Vibe Historical coastal pub with dramatic ocean views and upmarket food and drinks.

Go-to dish Barbecue chicken and beets-and-peaches salad followed by the GG chocolate ice-cream with malted-milk crumb, banana and spun sugar.

Average cost for two $100, plus drinks