It was a subtle Instagram post that announced arguably the most eagerly anticipated opening this year. After a number of well-reported delays, Poly, the wine-bar-with-food from Mat Lindsay and the team behind Chippendale’s much-lauded Ester, finally opened its doors in August.

In residence at the Paramount Hotel in Sydney’s Surry Hills, the interior is unpolished and raw, wine bottles lining one wall, big windows to the street, and an open kitchen housing all the flame-heavy action in the corner.

A long communal table brings in the bar element, but the rest of the room is snug with conventional restaurant tables, suggesting the focus here is very much still on the food. In saying that, a far-flung wine list with exclusively biodynamic and organic wines by sommelier and self-coined co-conspirator of Poly Julien Dromgool is interesting and considered.

The short, concise menu has been a daily-changing work in progress since day one. Salt and vinegar haystack onion has been on and off the pass, and the moreish snack works nicely alongside the Geschickt Riesling from Alsace we sipped.

Tuna belly on toast is beautiful, the toast stealing the show from the creamy tuna, and the calamari skewer with fermented chilli and salted egg yolk is perfectly cooked, a little smoky and terribly good. Pork sausage fills malted rough puff-pastry in the blood pie, and this dish is the united favourite, the healthy kick of mustard launching it across the finish line.

There’s no doubt this is a very welcome addition to Sydney’s dining scene.

Must eat dish: Blood pie, mustard