New Sydney restaurant Rafi looks like it has been designed to withstand the malicious intent of a La Nina weather pattern.

While a seat on the balcony is brilliant on a balmy summer night, the dining room is fabulous in more inclement or cooler weather. The restaurant is located near to the gleaming skyscrapers in North Sydney and softened by its position under the outstretched limbs of a pretty row of plane trees.

Designed by Luchetti Krelle, RAFI is sheer, unadulterated elegance with a mix of marble and stone floors, custom timber parquetry and pops of orange, pink and bottle green.

A light-filled alcove called The Arbour offers diners yet another weather-proof alternative. Look up from your striped fabric banquette in the glasshouse and you will see potted plants under a square of sky that is either primary blue or the colour of wet cement, depending on said weather pattern.

Today, we are lucky under a cyan sky free of clouds, and a restaurant filled with a mix of cool kids, couples on first dates, culinary adventurers and smug locals loving their new neighbourhood hang. Midweek, the people-watching is more buttoned-up with suited-up salarymen and women from the central business hub staking their claim.

RAFI is the latest offering by Applejack Hospitality co-founders Ben Carroll and Hamish Watts (The Butler, The Botanist, SoCal, Bopp & Tone etc) and is, in fact, named for their children Raffaella and Aurora, Frankie and Indio.

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On this particular sun-soaked Saturday, the 300-seater venue is milling with people locked in a convivial vortex of clinking glasses over plates of food designed to share. There are not a lot of gems in North Sydney, so the vibes here are ridiculously good and made better by our moustachioed waiter Carlos, who matches the bright, breezy mood.

Set to a playlist of absolute bangers, the space provides the perfect backdrop to showcase a parade of dishes designed by head of culinary Patrick Friesen and Peruvian-born head chef Matias Cilloniz.

Start with a couple of Sydney rock oysters, which arrive with a delicate, zingy Granny Smith apple mignonette and the signature raw plate for two, which includes kingfish ceviche, tuna doused in tomato, tahini and chilli oil, and scallop with pickled turnip, ponzu and fresh wasabi.

If you’re hungry, follow with the half chicken, a bird that has been brined and blanched, and arrives with crisp, bronzed skin offset by a side of spring onions and broad beans. You’d be a fool to ignore the waiter’s suggestion to order Glacier 51 toothfish, which is cut with a rough-chopped sauce of capers, lemons and soy, and glass of O’Leary Riesling, one of many beauties on a 200-strong wine list.

We’re well and truly on team Applejack by the time the choc hazelnut tart arrives; it’s rich and extravagant and the perfect full stop to our feast. The best way to balance this giddy indulgence is with a post-prandial wander back over the Harbour Bridge, yet another reason to put RAFI on your radar.

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