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For all the blue-chip properties around North Sydney, Kirribilli and Neutral Bay, there aren’t too many places where you can gorge on steaks more expensive than a Paul McCartney ticket and drink the appropriate shiraz. A bistro for steak frites, sure – and there’s no end of chips-or-salad pub rump specials – but any north-of-the-bridge locals jonesing for high-end wagyu have long needed to venture into the city or grill their own.

At least, I would have said that until Poetica opened in North Sydney’s central business hub four weeks ago. It hasn’t just filled the fancy steak gap: it’s stuffed to the brim with hulking sirloins, rib-eyes and tomahawks to share. Floor-to-ceiling fridges display gnarly cuts of maroon-red beef tagged with the farm of origin and dry-ageing date, some waiting more than a month to be cooked over charcoal and served with a herb sauce so green it almost looks radioactive.

If you’re a local who has long dreamt of dropping $280 on a one-kilogram T-bone and walking home, this is exciting stuff. I was champing for the restaurant to open: The Sydney Morning Herald is based in the same office block and it would be nice to have a swanky bolt-hole for cocktails after work. Poetica, I declared to any colleagues who’d listen, would be our Rockpool Bar & Grill of the north.

Beef and bordeaux fans of the lower north shore, your new clubhouse has arrived.

Etymon Projects – the group in charge – also operates The Charles Grand Brasserie & Bar in the CBD and hatted Lavender Bay bistro Loulou. They know a thing or two about stiff drinks and French sauces. The team also knows how to gussy up a room and the long, first-level dining area is decked out in soft oak and steel-blue hues. A semi-concealed bar is impressively comfortable and a beaut spot to hide out with a smoky house martini ($26) and half a dozen oysters ($46). Is this what the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge feels like?

Culinary director Sebastien Lutaud has worked with chef Connor Hartley-Simpson to create a menu that’s more contemporary than Etymon’s other venues. A lot of fuss is made about the open kitchen’s charcoal oven and wood-burning hearth, and the steaks, such as a 400-gram wagyu sirloin ($120) from King River in North Queensland, are indeed full of potent, concentrated flavour.

But – and here’s the hot tip – I think the salads are better. Assorted spring vegetables ($23) grown near Lake Macquarie by Newcastle Greens are as addictive as any hot chip: a jumble of pickled and just-cooked beetroot, radish, green beans and snowpeas sharpened with seaweed vinaigrette and pretty daubs of creme fraiche. A bright and light broad bean salad ($24) with mixed leaves and milky ricotta is precisely calibrated with a pickled lemon dressing.

If you worked in North Sydney and needed a spot for a quick lunch with clients, sharing those two salads and a velvety, 250-gram rump cap (the cheapest steak on the carte at $55) should have you back at your desk without suffering food-induced narcolepsy. A glass of smooth and savoury Woodlands 2019 Cabernet Merlot from Margaret River ($16) is optional.

However, if time and budget are less of a concern, there’s ample opportunity to have more fun. Oysters flambadou (I mean, it’s fun just to say “flambadou”!) translates to Sydney rocks kicked up with a guindilla pepper and ’nduja salami and drizzled with sizzling-hot beef fat. Yours for $10 a spicy-sweet pop.

Meanwhile, nubs of smoked eel and braised leeks are wrapped in nori and presented like pâté en croute ($25). An eel-bone broth poured over the dish makes it a smart and deeply flavoured choice for the table.

Focaccia di Recco ($16) is another fine idea, stuffed with gruyere cheese and capers, and baked so it’s thin and crispy and looks like something you might find at the Pizza Hut buffet. Team it with a punchy beef tartare honed by green mustard and crunchy with flecks of caramelised onion ($26).

The flavour of buttery fish stock accompanying 200 grams of dry-aged, lightly charred swordfish ($42) is clean and direct, but I’m less taken by the fillet’s too-soft texture.

This is a new charcoal and wood-fired kitchen, though, and it’s going to take time for the chefs to work out its sweet spots. There’s plenty to keep me coming back, not least of all a wonderfully spongy, syrupy, brown butter cake ($20) and a wine list rich with French and Australian reds.

Beef and bordeaux fans of the lower north shore, your new clubhouse has arrived. See you at the bar after knock-off on Friday.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine