The Gantry serves steak and chips - but make them the best-ever salt and vinegar crisps

It's tough being a hotel chef with ambition. The chef who wants to serve precise, expressive food when most guests want straight-up pasta, maybe a steak, and the second-cheapest shiraz: "This tortellini in capon broth is all well and good, but d'ya reckon you could just do a spag bol?"

And fair enough, too. If I'm eating in the same place I'm sleeping, it's probably because I'm wrecked from travel and don't have the energy to think about dinner, let alone leave the hotel. A medium-rare rib-eye would be very nice, thank you, and we'll finish the Pepperjack in the room.

So most hotel restaurants play it safe and end up being less thrilling than an airport lounge buffet. 

However, in the past few months, a handful of chefs has set out to prove that hotel dining can be more than bain-maries and last year's trends. Vegetable-championing Mitch Orr at Kiln zigs every time you expect a zag at Surry Hills' Ace Hotel, and chef James Viles was just awarded a Good Food Guide hat for his "rugged, but refined" cooking at Park Hyatt Sydney.

Meanwhile, The Gantry Restaurant at Pier One Sydney Harbour has just reopened after five months of restoration work. When I was here two years ago, the dining room was a cold, sterile space punctuated by a few heritage beams. Now the spot is bright and airy with handsome, stained timbers, a monolith of a bar and a sizeable banquette with Walsh Bay views. Craspedia and yellow-pink grevillea dot every table; it's all very "Sydney".

Newish chef Rhys Connell leads the kitchen and he's very much a cook with ambition. Ingredients such as lemon aspen and macadamia miso feature among the tasting menu options, but there's also a "supplementary" carte spruiking less tricked-up items, including crudites with whipped roe ($24) and coal-grilled southern rock lobster ($120). Smart.

Cheese-and-pepper snow crab ($44) from that extras menu – a riff on Rome's cacio e pepe pasta, but with Tasmanian cheddar instead of pecorino and palm heart slivers in place of spaghetti – is more outré. The fibrous palm core can take a bit of work to chew, but the silky, cheesy sauce is devilishly good, especially with the nutty flavours of Wantirna Estate's 2019 Isabella Chardonnay from the Yarra Valley ($185).

You don't have to throw wads of cash at the wine list to drink well, though. Energetic sommelier Ahmad Fahda is quick to recommend a zesty 2020 Chalmers Vermentino ($15 by the glass) for diced yellowfin tuna boosted with the pure umami of oxheart tomatoes that have been gently dried under heat lamps. There's burrata underneath the ruby-red fish, tomato jelly and basil seeds on top, and focaccia on the side to fashion some kind of bruschetta.

A starting block of snacks is your reward for committing to one of the tasting menus instead of a la carte. Cos spooned with kingfish tartare and chilli-spiked tomato powder; deep-fried potato topped with raw scallop and salted-cherry sauce; a dense pinball of nori-marbled brioche crowned with caviar. They're all terrific and I can't pick a favourite (okay, it's the scallop-on-scallop one).

Charred, blacklip abalone is teamed with ribbons of celtuce, the gnarliest member of the lettuce family, and house-made duck ham on a pillow of celeriac gently cooked so it's soft and sweet, almost tropical. The dish is a restless combination of curls and twirls and textures, but the flavours are confident and everything pulls through. 

I'm less taken with a wet tranche of toothfish marinated in white wine and Vegemite. Boisterous and shouty, the balance isn't there.

Juicy karubi (boneless wagyu rib) is a much better main event, cooked overnight and finished on the grill, and glazed with a syrupy soy and rye reduction that's like a slow-jazz karaoke version of teriyaki. Bonus points for the accompanying radicchio chips, frilly, tangy and deep crimson – like the best Smith's Salt & Vinegar you've ever had.

Hang on a minute. Smith's chips, Vegemite, potato scallops … has Connell been looking to tuck shops for inspiration? A delicious Violet Crumble hat-tip of honeycomb and purple yam ice-cream does little to convince me otherwise. For a hotel restaurant, this is a lot of fun.

It's nice to have another staycation option, too, and if you're into this kind of frivolous, weekend indulgence, I can confirm that Pier One's rooms offer a good comfort-to-price ratio. 

More of those scallop-topped scallops would be very nice, thank you, and we'll finish the vermentino at the bar.

Vibe: Deluxe and daring harbourside dining

Go-to dish: Yellowfin tuna with oxheart tomato, burrata and basil

Drinks: Tight, thoughtful list with a focus on Australian producers and emerging varietals

Cost: Three-course a la carte $130 a person; tasting menu $140 (four-course) or $190 (seven-course)

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine