Don't miss the duck at this well-heeled Sydney pub

All right, we get it. Merivale is good at restaurants. It has scooped multiple awards, hoovered up the best talent and, as we speak, there are Totti's raining down across Australia (four in Sydney and rumours of one in Byron Bay and Lorne).

I once remarked to Justin Hemmes that the moment you step into a Merivale venue you get a strong feeling it's one of theirs. He said, "Thank you." There are plenty of people, though, who wouldn't read that as a compliment, who'd see the hospitality group as flattening the city, stifling it with lighting and music that are just a little too perfect.

But if you like your welcomes bright, your drinks expertly poured, your furnishings stylish and your kitchens run by some of the country's top chefs, Merivale has your number.

Look at Hotel Centennial on a Saturday. The room slowly fills with diners who've been drawn here for exactly those reasons. Natural light bounces around the immaculate space, the wood oven glows. Is that owl portrait on the wall a Leila Jeffreys? Are those curtains linen?

Order a martini and it comes out properly chilled. Order a flatbread and it comes warm, puffed and laden with the season's produce.

In terms of tone, not much has changed since Hemmes bought the Woollahra pub in 2017; the fawn lounges and the lamps around the dining-room and public bar were here already, the waffles are still on the dessert menu and the guests still dress in cashmere and leather – but there has been a shift in the kitchen.

The Centennial of 2018 opened under Ben Greeno, with Danielle Alvarez a close collaborator. Their menu was always sharp and although Alvarez has departed, these excellent foundations have allowed the kitchen (now led day-to-day by head chef Shane Watson) to find another gear.

That doesn't mean fuss or over-the-top luxe, but simple ideas pulled off with care and precision. Take the pâté ($29), which is of the proper, country-style variety. Coarsely textured, it's set beautifully and studded with pistachios and clean-tasting cubes of pork fat. There's no sign of crumble, no funk and just a hint of sweetness from apricot. 

Then there are the prawns ($39) thrown in the wood oven just long enough for the butter in the pan to brown gently as an accompanying splash of pastis reduces to an intense anise sweetness.

Many accomplished chefs can put up impressive plates with a big enough budget, but Greeno's kitchen brings an extra level of attention. These flourishes are evident in the tiny fried capers that bring just the right amount of salt to the wood-fired flatbread spread with smoked trout ($24) and in the way a fillet of Murray cod ($54) is half-wrapped in vine leaves before going into the searing oven, the leaves protecting the flesh while crisping up with the exposed skin. Small moves with big impact.

Greeno led the opening team at Momofuku Seiobo in Pyrmont before jumping to The Paddington (Merivale's dressed-down pub) to run a menu centred around rotisserie chicken, chips and salad. If the Centennial's whole duck for two ($140) does anything, it shows that spending five years roasting 90,000-odd birds has some sort of payoff.

If you do order it (hint, you should), it starts with a waiter presenting the crown (two breasts on the bone) for the table to oooh and aaah at, the skin shiny with honey and tinged gold with fennel pollen, then ends with the carved meat returning to the table in a sea of jus. The thighs, cooked confit with a generous hand of salt, come separately. 

As for the details, they extend to plating the meat with the leftover crisp, fatty strip of skin cut from along the bird's breastbone and tossing the less presentable bits – the leg meat, for example – with olives and leaves as an extra. 

With all that richness going on, a bigger whack of vinegar in the side salad ($17) would really go a long way. There's no faulting the potatoes ($16), though, which ooze fat as they crackle and crunch.

Is Hotel Centennial revolutionary? Not really. Just easy to like. It also slots into a theme at Merivale's more recent establishments that starts with exceptional produce being placed in the hands of seasoned professionals and leaving the rest to take care of itself. 

This, really, is the benefit of the big restaurant groups: the chefs have excellent collaborators, the staff are well-trained, you can pair your zucchini tart with Holy Goat cheese and stuff your vegetables with red rice farmed in southern France. Then just pick which one of your master sommeliers will oversee the wine list.

But when many restaurants with serious backing can miss so many marks, Centennial deserves praise for hitting them. It also demonstrates that a well-drilled team of expensively assembled parts can still find moments of beauty and levity among the same old patterns. For that, it's worth buying a ticket.

Vibe: Airy, light and comfortably moneyed

Go-to dish: Roasted duck for two ($140)

Drinks: Classic cocktails and a wine list that favours chardonnay and pinot noir but maintains variety

Cost: About $180 for two, excluding drinks

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine

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