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Los Angeles is so much more interesting than the glammed-up vapidness that exists in the collective consciousness of the rest of the world.

Having lived there for more than half a decade, I can attest to the fact that it’s possible to spend time there and never encounter the bizarreness of Hollywood and Beverly Hills – most people who call the city home live in sunny and palm-tree-bedecked but normal neighbourhoods, with nary a movie star in sight.

(This reality has become even more important to understand following the wildfires and resultant devastation – the people who have lost everything are mostly middle and working class, not Kardashians.)

This divide between the fantasy of LA and the reality is especially interesting when you see representations of the city elsewhere in the world. Marmont, the new restaurant in Crown casino, facing the Yarra River walk, is just such a projection. It’s named in honour of Chateau Marmont, the legendary Hollywood hotel, which has hosted movie stars from Katharine Hepburn to Johnny Depp, and where John Belushi died in 1982.

The man behind Marmont is Grant Smillie, an Australian-born DJ and restaurateur who has made a career of importing parts of Australia to Los Angeles, and now, vice versa. In 2015, he opened E.P. & L.P. in West Hollywood, a restaurant and rooftop bar with Australian Louis Tikaram as chef, serving bright, acid-forward food.

It stands to reason that Marmont would mostly represent the fantastical side of LA, given the reputation of its namesake. But even so, this place has very little to do with the reality of Chateau Marmont, which is a glory of rococo vintage grandeur.

Here, the walls are decorated with cartoonish murals that aim to convey that vibe, depicting scenes of swank revellers in a swish dining room. But still, even with the clubby patio furniture and breezy feel, this is a restaurant in a casino, and it can’t quite lose that manufactured, corporate vibe.

The most Californian thing about this restaurant is undoubtedly its chef, Mark Tagnipez, who has reached into his own Los Angeles background for inspiration, as well as leaning into some fun representations of bold Americana. Bucking the current trend, Marmont’s menu is surprisingly short, which probably helps greatly with quality control.

Seafood is featured heavily, all of it exceedingly fresh, including the raw scallops on a pretty tostada, which comes piled with green mango and basil. There’s a crudo that combines sliced tuna, swordfish and snapper over a salad of capers, lemon and shaved onion. Skull Island prawns are split open, grilled to a creamy-crispy dream, and slathered in Calabrian chilli butter.

Large plates, all of them big enough to share between two people, include a fantastic pork pluma (a tender loin cut) with a tart crying tiger sauce and fennel pollen.

Perhaps the dish that ought to define this place is the cornbread, which comes topped with a melting ball of peach butter. There are a few types of cornbread in the US, as well as a long-standing debate about whether the recipe should include sugar.

Marmont’s version goes beyond the regular bounds of cornbread decency, and is basically a dessert, or at the very least a sweet breakfast/brunch item, cooked in the form of a small cake and drowning in sweet butter. This is the Playboy bunny of cornbread, sexed up and lascivious but undeniably appealing in its way.

“Marmont’s version goes beyond the regular bounds of cornbread decency.”

Following in that unabashedly American bigger-is-better ethos is a giant chocolate chip cookie, gooey and warm, served with ice-cream that is supposedly Armagnac flavoured but doesn’t really taste that way – it doesn’t matter much, the cookie makes up for it.

Service, delivered mostly by dashing young European men, veers wildly from friendly and attentive to completely disengaged. One afternoon I had to wave someone down mid-meal to ask for a drinks list, only to have to do the same 30 minutes later to request the bill – no one had stopped by in the meantime. In the evening when the place was slammed, our waiter was a constant, charming and capable presence. Some people (and restaurants) thrive on chaos, I suppose.

I tend to prefer restaurants that have a somewhat authentic sense of place, something that feels real and rooted in a culture that actually exists. But I can see the appeal of restaurant-as-fantasy, as a step away from the real world, into something fun but completely divorced from the limitations of authenticity.

In this way, Marmont is a success, made even better by the fact the food is consistently impressive. I might not go here to get a taste of the Los Angeles I love and remember, but I’d absolutely go back for a gooey, massive cookie, or for that ridiculous cornbread, as plumped up and fanciful as it may be.