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Everyone wants a bit of Bondi. There are Boost Juice and Cali Press juice bars; Sushi Trains and Fishbowls; Betty’s Burgers and Bills. Developers, planners, councillors: they all want a chunk of our most famous seaside suburb.

So it’s good to see a local Bondi figure take over a prime restaurant site, instead of someone from outside the bubble.

Harry Lambropoulos is Bondi to his bootstraps, a local fixture since teaming up with the late Jackie Milijash in 1995 to open Raw Bar, the Japanese diner that introduced sushi to the surfing generation. Harry’s Espresso followed next door in 1997, which morphed into Harry’s Bar and Diner in 2015, introducing the evenings-only RND (Raw Next Door) izakaya in 2021. Now he’s at it again, taking over the old A Tavola site in Hall Street to create Lulu.

Interior designer Petra Ryberg worked with general manager Jonna Kristiansson on the refurb, which sees dusky pink marble tables reflected in dusky pink walls, with a smart, stool-lined marble bar, cushy banquettes and one alpha half-moon of a booth. Important style note: it’s dusky pink, not Barbie pink.

Long-term executive chef Shintaro Honda ensures there is a Raw Bar family resemblance with lists of sashimi, nigiri and maki rolls, while former Raw Bar head chef Bryan O’Callaghan expands the brief from Japan to include the flavours of Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and China.

It’s attractive food, nicely plated with an eye for colour and form, as if it knows the camera will be shooting from directly above. The Hokkaido toast ($19 for two) is a ripper, the planks of crisp toast laden with sea-sweet Hokkaido scallop and prawn paste, iced with crunchy sesame seeds and poppy, bright orange mentai (cod) roe.

An Asahi beer ($12) is a good call at this stage, as is an elegant little cocktail of Roku gin, yuzushu, lime and Regal Rogue Lively White vermouth, called Konichi Wah. House sake is served hot or cold ($20/$32); the cold is infinitely more refreshing.

With no fewer than 11 sushi rolls – from crowd-pleasers of prawn tempura with yuzu mayo, to spicy tuna with cucumber and chives – you have to take them up on one. An Alaskan king crab roll ($26) comes camera-ready and sliced into six, topped with green and red tobiko for a fluorescent crunch. It’s absolutely fine, but I’d forgotten that crab isn’t my filling of choice; it gets too soft and creamy compared to more textural fish.

The space fills and gets loud. Cocktails are shaken, music is playing, and everyone seems quite dressy in an athletic sort of way. Some of the dishes should have their own Instagram account, too. I’m thinking of the ssamjang eggplant ($18), with its three primaeval-looking dark wheels burnished with a crimson ssamjang sauce made of soybean and chilli paste. It’s delicious, without any of the bitterness that can accompany eggplant. Cooked this way – fried, slow – it becomes so light and moussey, it’s like eating a pillow.

Peking chicken with honey hoisin sauce and bok choy ($24) looks good, but the dice rolls for doubanjiang beef ($25) instead. Another good share dish, it hovers between being Sichuan and Korean, with fall-apart chunks of braised intercostal beef corralled by logs of ttokbokki, a soft, chewy rice cake that contrasts nicely. Crimson chilli threads and coriander are piled on top for freshness.

There’s just the one dessert: a chrysanthemum-shaped wafer holding vanilla bean ice-cream and miso caramel ($7). Squish the two halves together into an instant ice-cream sandwich with a nice caramelly twang.

They call Lulu Raw Bar’s spicy little sister, and I think that’s key to its likeability. While it looks sparkly and new, it has a backstory; born to a family in the neighbourhood that knows the people and the place. The next time you feel like a bit of Bondi yourself, you know where to go.