Whether you choose the four-course set menu or full experience, a meal at Ides, Peter Gunn’s contemporary, boundary-pushing Collingwood restaurant, is filled with terrific tricks and sleights of hand.

From the first mushroom morsels that hide in plain sight, through to a chocolate box that’s a smashing success, the full menu is more fun than fine diner, for there’s nothing po-faced about peanut butter to spread on hot-seeded rolls, a surprising signature for very good reason.

An onslaught of snacks – cucumber sprinkled with tingling Sancho pepper; a fried chicken wing; juicy cos seasoned with palm sugar just some of the tastes – precede an elegant Spencer Gulf prawn swimming in a stunning green pepper broth, and torched kingfish with a powerful chorizo lime sauce.

Excellent Cape Grim bavette comes with a barrage of DIY accoutrements – chestnut puree, pickled onions, roasted beetroot – while elderflower strawberries served with coconut yoghurt is an Insta-famous dish that lives up to the hype.

A recent makeover has softened the once-austere room, service is switched on and worldly wines flying the non-interventionist flag are firmly aimed at a cool industry crowd happy to spend.

While there might be the occasional miss (a pear tart piled high with truffle is a too overtly bold and heavy-handed finale) Ides continues to push boundaries and march to its own beat.

Must-eat dish: King prawn, green pepper broth