When it comes to restaurants, Fink (Quay, Bennelong) knows what it’s doing. If you’re not a member of Sydney’s glitterati, you sure feel like it here on Cowper Wharf. This is relaxed fine dining and as classic Sydney as Sydney gets.

The menu, though Italian, reads as a best-of Aussie produce. We were expecting soft pillows of shallow-fried gnocchi with the wagyu bresaola and gorgonzola, but the “gnocco fritto” were puffed, hard and deep fried, with hollow centres. They were technically lovely little morsels, though a heads up from the waiter would have been appreciated, as we’d have diverted our order. Otherwise, service is swift, knowledgeable and helpful, our waiter moving us out of the sun when we order through squints. The technique is excellent and the produce perfect, and true to the ethos of Otto, everything that arrives at the table is from local producers, in season, and well considered.

Pasta is where Otto really shines. Spaghetti with eastern rock lobster and cherry tomato, chilli, garlic and brandy is a superb dish. In another spaghetti dish, soft slivers of calamari are entwined with the pasta and South Australian Goolwa pippies, shaved bottarga a salty, creamy addition. It’s a gorgeous dish that would take us back to the warm, sparkling days of an Italian summer, if it weren’t also so perfectly Australian. Otto’s fish offering spans whole grilled local eastern rock lobster, Eden mussels and Petuna ocean trout. Tables are filled with bankers, lawyers and suits from the CBD, out to prove the long lunch is back. There’s a happy tinkling of glasses and bobbing of boats on the gorgeous pier, and it makes you feel glad to be alive, and grateful to be dining here.