Happy Boy has a new sister — Greenglass — and although it is very different in a culinary sense, it shares the same minimalist ideals.

It follows the Melburnian (and Happy Boy) trend of being noticed by its lack of presence — a door on George St, minimally signed, a flight of stairs to a first-floor corridor occupied by two vacant dusty rooms, then a small kitchen to the left and at last a doorway to a light-filled, purposefully sparse dining room. It’s an arrival that breeds a sort of clubby, secret handshake, “yeah I too know about this place” feeling — we’ll leave the rest of the uninitiated city lunchers to their focaccia and lattes.

A wall ledge holds a massive line of bottles, all apparently available.

Meanwhile, there’s a tightly pared page of wines, five in total, all uncommon, by the glass and bottle: riesling, chardonnay, rose, pinot and shiraz, $12-$15 a glass. Then there’s six cocktails and two beers. Lovely.

The menu is just as succinct (small enough that a mate and I decided to have a crack at everything), French-inspired and, like the space, basking in hip simplicity. It’s listed on a blackboard — for our visit: salad, chicken, fish and two versions of steak frites (eye and rib fillets) — and it changes constantly.

Salad ($16) is a morphed niçoise — beans, potato, egg, sun-dried tomato, carrot and feta. It’s a good salad, properly dressed, quirked a little by roasted/fried potato (crunchy, delicious) and just-right egg. I could live a century without ever craving sun-dried tomato — here it’s a hindrance rather than a spoiler.

Chicken ($18) is sort of French bistro meets home cooking — roast Maryland topped with caramelised onions (almost to jam) on a mound of creamy mash, tossed greens to the side, a drizzle of jus and the best dish of the set. There’s snapper fillet ($25) on a fat slice of eggplant (both pan-fried) with a good dollop of tomato chutney and a rich, silky saffron beurre blanc. The tomato component seems out of sync with the rest of the dish — it starts to mix with the saffron sauce and, for me, spoils an otherwise very classic simplicity.

Then steak frites (rib fillet $32, eye fillet $40). It shares the same sticky onion as the chicken, but here woven through a pretty good sauce with frites and salad to the side.

It’s food without surprises or tricks, but it is perfectly cooked and undeniably delicious.

There is design and cunning to Greenglass, but it flatters with its hide and seek, can-you-see-past-the-bumpkin facade. It’s all kinds of fun.

This review originally appeared on couriermail.com.au.