As the newly installed executive chef of Regatta, he doesn’t don the whites. That responsibility falls on Ben Fitton (Shanghai’s Roomtwentyeight).

Instead, Pignolet is in the dining room, pressing the flesh and tending to his flock, many of whom have no doubt trailed him from Claude’s, to Bistro Moncur (which he founded) to the Bellevue Hotel and now here, the prettiest little waterfront restaurant in Sydney.

“I’ve never really been a fan of walking out to tables in the whites at the end of service,” he says.

“As a patron, one minute you’re having this lovely meal and the next you’re shaking hands with this sweaty man who smells of onions.”

It’s that subtle consideration that seems to underpin everything at Regatta, which succeeded Peter Doyle’s Pier in 2014. The wait staff are efficient without being stuffy and as far as the dining environment goes you can’t really get nicer, surrounded on three sides by the lapping Pacific.

But none of that was ever going to be the issue, was it? Pignolet’s appointment is clearly a declaration that Regatta wants its place back among Sydney’s most popular restaurants — a status relished during its Pier heyday.

And after all, who better to lure the ravenous ‘riche’ of the East than the man who made Bistro Moncur the unofficial Woollahra RSL for 18 years?

Thus the menu, divided into starters, entrees, pastas and mains, is carefully calibrated in a way that brings a modicum of Pignolet’s legendary technique to Fitton’s bold modern Australian sensibility.

And there’s lots of seafood. Half of the mains are fish dishes, ditto for the pastas and there are traditional starters like oysters and the famous tuna tartare cones which go back to the Doyle days.

We succumb to nostalgia and go with the crab omelet ($35) and scallop souffle ($27) to start and find one has translated better than the other. The omelet, served with nettle in season but sorrel at the moment, is fluffy, gooey in the middle and loaded with fresh blue swimmer crab; pretty-much bang on. But the souffle, twice cooked and lovingly presented, is a pinch under-seasoned.

The shared rocket, parsley and ricotta ravioli with scorched tomato butter and fried sage leaves ($22/$33) is sublime and lifted by a heavenly sauce of roasted tomatoes which have been passed through a chinois and worked in with butter.

But dish of the day for me is the New Zealand snapper served with juicy, salty surf clams under a sauce of fennel seed, eschalot, white wine, saffron and parsley — and of course butter — atop strips of baked fennel.

It’s a complex combination of flavours but tastes so simple and clean.

Very good, too, is a free-range chicken breast cooked sous-vide with tarragon and garlic cloves ($36) with a salad of heirloom tomatoes and new potatoes.

There are desserts, of course, and the passionfruit and praline souffle ($17) is among the best I’ve ever tasted.

The wine list is a well thought-out mix of French and Australian and surprisingly there are some affordable options if you’re looking for mid-market.

Asked how his tenure is going, three weeks in, Pignolet sighs and says; “They’re good but things can always be better, better, better.”

Don’t let the modesty fool you; it’s pretty bloody great.

Originally published in dailytelegraph.com.au