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There are truths in the realm of food and restaurants as reliable as any Newtonian proof or law of planetary motion. Every five years, someone will try to launch a gourmet jacket potato chain. The best-tasting oysters are the ones you eat on your birthday. Poivre is the greatest sauce for chips, followed by bearnaise, and there will always be a market for plush dining rooms where you can eat a big steak.

Eleven Barrack is banking on this last truth, competing with similar, steak-centric joints in the CBD, such as The International, Rockpool, Clam Bar and The Gidley. It has elements of those that have come before it, but Eleven Barrack also has its own personality and point of view, not to mention a baby grand complete with live pianist.

The team behind nearby Bentley, King Clarence and Monopole opened Eleven Barrack at the site of the first purpose-built Savings Bank of NSW in February. The high-ceilinged space was home to ambitious Italian restaurant Seta for a couple of years until 2023, and the new kitchen brigade (led by co-owner Brent Savage with group head chef Aiden Stevens and Niro Richards) must be pretty stoked to inherit an imported woodgrill that cost the previous occupants somewhere in the vicinity of $400,000.

At first glance, it looks like any standard-issue deluxe surf-and-turf: marble columns, white tablecloths, a separate, low-lit oak bar with its own burger and snack menu. But designer Pascale Gomes-McNabb also sets tartan carpet against metallic purple, and co-owner Nick Hildebrandt has been scouring auctions for odds and ends of all sizes. You may feel as if you’re in Elton John’s mind palace or a hidden-object game: can you find a baseball, Michelin Man, rum cart, giant key, parachute and a horse with a small head?

Savage’s long menu imbues the tried-and-true grill format with personality, too, from a springy crumpet crowned with raw, diced bluefin tuna held in place with horseradish cream, to a properly tart key lime pie with a sheen of ginger jelly and top layer of coconut curd. A buffalo-milk sorbet with honeycomb and aged balsamic nails the balance of textures, sweetness and that extra tang.

Fried ricotta dumplings replace blinis as the ideal caviar vessel, flathead is fashioned into goujons, and a not-too-rich “seafood sausage” of Murray cod and chicken would get along with just about any white wine from sommelier Alex Davenport and Hildebrandt’s excellent wine list. A textural 2023 Clos Thierrière chenin blanc from the Loire Valley ($24 a glass) is particularly great with a densely savoury Moreton Bay bug and dashi custard to start.

From the salad carte, a one-three punch of parmesan, caperberries and salted zucchini with mint could be dialled back, but feta against the soft crunch of black barley, witlof and beetroot gets the seasoning just right. Team it with a precision-steamed market fish, maybe John dory, coated in silky chive butter and trout roe, if you’re steering clear of red meat.

But if you’re keen to hunker down with a top-shelf cow, consider the beefy, buttersoft, roasted chateaubriand presented in a vintage chafing dish with carrots and turnips. It’s $190, but it’s also 800 grams and best shared between four. Steaks from the grill (there are six of ’em) start at $58 for a scarlet-red flat-iron accompanied by silver mustard service and requisite jus.

The floor team is poised and knowledgeable; a high calibre Manhattan is mixed and chilled tableside. Like any good grill, Eleven Barrack caters to Tuesday-lunch corporates as much as Saturday-night celebrations, and I’ve actually just booked it for my birthday. Come at me, oysters, chips and faultless bearnaise.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine