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When the interior designer first told restaurateur Dot Lee that a wall at her new Chippendale restaurant, Longshore, would be clad in seagrass matting, Lee admits she thought the idea “was a bit weird”.

But the favoured flooring of beach shack rentals helped nail the brief to warm the industrial feel of the space’s predecessor, Automata.

“To me, it’s what changes the space more than anything,” Lee says. Her new restaurant and wine bar with chef partner Jarrod Walsh opens on Thursday, June 15.

Designer Guru Projects dressed the room with mini-skirt-sized curtains and created a lamp-topped banqueted corner nook Lee loves. “It feels really special and is really comfortable,” she says.

Lee and Walsh were last spotted at Hartsyard in Newtown before making the move to Chippendale. They chose to open a seafood restaurant because when they go out to eat, they usually skip the meat for the marine end of menus.

“If people are going out to eat, I want them to have something they aren’t going to have at home,” Lee says of Longshore’s menu, which has a strong focus on Australian produce.

There are vegetarian options, and red meat dishes such as kangaroo tartare, but Longshore’s main calling card is its seafood.

The “freestyle cuisine” combines coastal ingredients with Asian techniques, producing Insta-worthy dishes such as scallop with mandarin koshu and makrut lime.

A favourite of Lee’s is a dish she calls prawn tacos – customers wrap steamed prawns in wasabi leaves, toasted seaweed and shiso leaves at the table. “It just makes me very happy,” she says.

Lee and Walsh aren’t trying to conquer all of Sydney at Longshore. “Hartsyard taught us about being part of a community, we’re not wanting to be a destination restaurant, we want people coming back,” she says.

Open Fri-Sun lunch; Thu-Sat and Mon dinner

5 Kensington Street, Chippendale, longshore.com.au