Prahran pub The Smith version 2.0 is a people-pleaser

Not to sound like your school counsellorbut it pays to remember that restaurants are special in different ways. Not all want to be a high-achieving Attica. Some are the Jim's Greek Taverns of Melbourne. They feed the masses and do it well. There are your artsy loners intent on suffering for their craft. Then you've got your popular kids – your Hawker Halls and St Hotels where the look of the place (and the people in them) is nine-10ths of the draw.

Michael Lambie and Scott Borg have been blunt about their newly-renovated Prahran pub. "We're giving the market what it wants." That mightn't be the most exciting mission statement, but at least it's refreshingly honest. Borg and Lambie are clear: they are businessmen. Their existing Prahran following was maturing and they knew they needed to appeal to next-gen.

A six-month renovation and rethink later and the Smith has, as promised, been reborn as a people-pleaser. There is an extra bar, late-night DJs. A fish and chipper will open in the next two weeks.The space is as big as the menu is broad. And credit where due: those spaces are full.

For the price tag, the fitout looks deliberately tousled. Like designer ripped jeans. You'll be forgiven for thinking you've walked into a VIP lounge at a festival. Artist Ash Keaton's trademark sprays of fuschia and orange paint, extruded from a fire extinguisher, decorate the many acres of walls. Still, banquettes are comfy, and ridged blond wood panels give eyes somewhere to rest.

The blonde and the buffed pack out the central bar drinking some very decent cocktails. The disco thyme (tequila, lime and Chartreuse) an excellent last word/margarita hybrid. Manhattans are tight. Better ice would make the service stronger still.

On the table, Lambie is uniting his classical Euro training with his love of Asian food. It's a pretty grab-bag mash-up. There are hot dinner rolls to start followed by tuna sashimi, bright, light and gingery. Next there might be crisp barramundi swaddled in a taco all chased by steak frites.

The something-for-everyone styling mightn't get food nerd hearts aflutter, but restaurant followers will remember Lambie once steered the kitchen at Circa and Taxi Dining Room. He has form across the board.

Top of the Euro-pops: a tranche of warmed ocean trout is still flushed at heart and perfect lunch with its salad of watercress, cool charred corn and salty trout roe. There's a great dressing of buttermilk and shallots. Whole heads of broccoli are chilli-spiked and finished with pecorino. The pork terrine, truffle-flecked, is straight from the school of Marco Pierre-White. It's a little chilly, but textbook precision topped with a quenelle of silky foie gras parfait and nicely spiced chutney on the side.

Elsewhere there is a lot of "sticky braised" action. Big plates of sugary slow-cooked protein to split with your colleagues over your creative business lunch. The former Smith's Kansas City pork ribs still ride. Right on the anglo-Asian line is a duck dish that resembles a ginger-spiked duck a l'orange that would be better if the skin had achieved the next level of crisp.

The Smith was always a place of function. The meeting point, the place where you could be paleo and FODMAP or just plain annoying. It remains so, but amped further. Wine lists are inclusive. An $89 Etienne Boileau chablis is lovely but you can jump into bottles for as little as $40. A $68 feed-me menu means you don't have to think at all. Dietaries and dogs (outside) are welcome.

Our dessert is a (slightly too firm) pansy-dressed panna cotta, but it is delivered by a team who know their paces. It's a well-oiled machine backed by house beats. If it tends towards formulaic, they've struck a formula that works.