The verdict on Andrew McConnell's new Chinese restaurant Ricky and Pinky

Have you made a booking? No? Well, you're not going until next week then. Andrew McConnell, the chef-restaurateur who can't and won't stop rocking the dining kasbah, dropped his latest bombshell this month, uniting the fine dining and bistro portions of the Builders Arms as a spectacular Chinese diner, named for the tattoo parlour where he got his first ink. McConnell helped drive the no-bookings trend a decade ago. But this time around you can book. And you need to.

Place Ricky and Pinky in your mind alongside Supernormal – McConnell's Japanese-ish city bistro where gyoza meets a karaoke den – rather than the pared-back elegance of Marion or Cumulus Inc. This is the McConnell group bringing the fun, with fluorescent portraits of great '90s napkin folds by artists Tin and Ed and a slick riff on the Midori-spiked Japanese Slipper (a not-horrible limeade-like cocktail).

Is it a good move? Well, it makes sense since Lee Ho Fook moved its contemporary Chinese charms to the city last year. And you can still sit at the front bar with the trademark cod roe dip and a burger. Will that continue? It's the only quiet quarter on our visits.

Everyone else is too invested in garlic bread made on milk buns filled with black garlic and seaweed – by parts sweet and umamilicious. To our mind, that and the sticky sweet-and-sour pork skin-topped tapioca crackers (which could be crisper) will soon push the pub food out the door.

McConnell hasn't gone full Chinese disco. If anything, he could have gone further. Gold pipes frame a freshly revealed kitchen, but the walls have stayed white, the banquettes minty green. If you squint you can still see Moon Under Water. Just add marble lazy susans, a fish tank full of pipis and some really great red and gold-wrapped fortune cookies and hand wipes.

McConnell's in the kitchen at the moment, shoulder to shoulder with ex-Golden Fields chef Archan Chan, firing up a multi-region festival of skewers, dumplings, and lamb parties featuring big haunches of slow-cooked meat with soft buns and plates of pickles a la Mission Chinese in San Francisco.

Towelettes are your post-pipi friend for fingers greased by crisp Chinese doughnuts, dunked into particularly shrimpy XO sauce. It's big, bold and built for boozing. Your dim sum hero of sticky rice and sausage is presented as a crisp-shelled chewy rice cake, frosted with pork floss, slips of lap cheong – the sweet and funky twiggy sticks of China – and doused in a sweet-soy situation that does it a lot of favours.

Much of this food is elegant – the fried rice, a meatless wonder packed with garlic shoots and smoky mushrooms, is prettily showered with cured grated egg yolk. Fried school prawns ride high on mayo-slashed and sea-lettuce-showered cos leaves like the world's spikiest and most delicious sang choy bao – but ultimately you can see yourself eating it all with a table of frosty beers.

Only, this is team McConnell, so it might be a glass of Doctor Loosen riesling, or a Shadowfax chardonnay at prices of $15 and up. Also guaranteed is a smart, sharp team who have found their feet a few weeks in.

You mightn't always agree with the spicing. McConnell sometimes leans harder on the icy-hot power of Sichuan pepper  than you're used to. The ma po tofu tingles almost soapily, the silky-skinned pork wontons ping with chilli oil. 

In contrast, that lamb party could have gone further, the flavours failing to penetrate, though pickled garlic shoots, fresh cucumbers and "strange flavour sauce" that has an almost coffee-ish aspect helps. More typically you'll be eating these soft steamed bread-like pancakes with the smoked duck breast, hoisin and infinitesimally fine shallot threads. It's a helluva snack if troublesome to eat given the thickness of the duck slices.

Vegetarians: there are fewer options than we expected, but that fried rice, fluffy kale and mushroom-stuffed bao, a cold soba noodle salad nuttily enhanced with sesame oil and wobbly coins of fried silken tofu hailed with crisp garlic are your friends.

As is dessert: a perfectly simple and just outright perfect wedge of ginger sponge with custard or a giant, deliciously short fortune cookie. Our fortune tells us they're hiring. I think it says we'll be back.