By the time we receive our mains at the new Bistro Moncur Mosman — about two-and-a-half hours after we have entered the building — it has gone 10.10pm. I’m not sure how many people in Sydney eat after 10pm but I’m not usually one of them.

It has already been something of an epic just to get to the point of having mains before us on the table. First there were the four unanswered attempts to make a booking, including one unreturned message. (“Thanks for that feedback,” I’m told. “We’ve been having trouble with our phone system.”)

There was the hour-plus wait at the bar for a seat in the dining room. (“Oh,” said a waitress, rather crossly, when we had stopped her to ask why were overlooked for a table. “I was told you weren’t dining.”)

Then there was the brief sojourn when we were placed — desperation setting in from the one waiter who cared — on what seemed to be a park bench. A park bench? Yes, really. Alongside Bistro Moncur Mosman’s main dining room is a semi-outdoor terrace that includes a table pushed up against a garden bench. It’s a cold, uncomfortable seat, where we hadn’t wanted to be.

And so when we actually have food in front of us at this dwindling hour, now seated at a comfortable table inside the dining room proper, we plunge into it.

Woollahra’s French institution, Bistro Moncur, has opened a spin-off in what was the Buena Vista hotel, now renamed simply The Buena.

Hotelier Tim Fallon paid $16 million for the pub last year, then splashed further millions on a revamp that included the installation of new operators (Public House Management Group) and the bistro, a copy of the cherished Woollahra stalwart (PHMG also own the Woollahra operation). Into this odd mix, celebrity chef Guillaume Brahimi is somehow involved as a culinary frontman.

A nice job has been done matching the style of the original, down to the muted green colour scheme and replica menus that reflect an attractive if conventional representation of French bistro food.

Expect classic stuff; for entrees, chicken liver pate with brioche ($24), hand-cut steak tartare ($24), onion souffle gratin ($24), or, for mains, Moncur classics — pork sausages with Lyonnaise onions ($34), grilled sirloin with cafe de Paris butter ($48), minute steak with “wine merchant’s sauce” ($42). It’s a safe list that reads well — no complaints there.

But as we finally eat, I have to wonder if “Moncur brand chef” Dan Menzies is in the kitchen tonight (Brahimi certainly isn’t), for the food we are served would, I’m sure, leave regular Moncur patrons disappointed.

While our entrees — a simple but satisfying salad of thick slices of tomato with Sicilian olives ($19) and a sweet and minerally spanner crab omelet ($36) make no missteps — the mains are, well, less skilfully handled.

A sky-high fillet steak (a staggering $49, listed without provenance), ordered rare, arrives leaning to medium, its texture and flavour indistinct, while a Moncur classic of pan-fried barramundi ($44) with mashed peas and a stack of fried potato wisps is frankly underseasoned and disturbingly bland. Really? $49 and $44 respectively for dishes that aren’t perfect? After this long a wait?

As for dessert — apple tarte tartin, say, or strawberry souffle (both $18) — after 10.30pm? No. Thanks anyway.

Bistro Moncur has been handed the recipe for success, but it is clearly struggling on this visit. Now PHMG has plans to send the Moncur brand nationwide, and is scouting for venues in Melbourne and Brisbane. Will these new outlets capture the magic of the original in Woollahra, or offer pale imitations? That’s the question.