It's everybody's birthday at Caulfield North's brand new, entirely kosher restaurant. I'm serious. It almost feels like a joke when the fifth ganache-like chocolate tart comes out with sparklers ablaze. And no-one is faking it. Not as people do at cheap Vietnamese restaurants, getting staff to deliver deep-fried birthday bananas to unsuspecting mates. That's not the vibe at family-packed Shiloh. It's just that until now, the Jewish community of Caulfield North haven't had anywhere to party in orthodox style.

There are reasons. Running a certified kosher restaurant is no small matter when your kitchen staff has to include a rabbi to bless the whole proceedings. Owner Assaf Ben David, seeing the gap, has stepped up and hired two for Shiloh as well as non-Jewish chef Matthew Butcher.

Butcher might seem a weird appointment if you know his technique-heavy food from Chapel Street's Morris Jones. But Shiloh isn't built to educate the broader population on gefilte fish and matzo ball soup. The menu is a contemporary carte with some Israeli accents (though not all – Butcher has brought his signature tuna poke to the party) that happens to play by kosher rules.

Aside from the giant candle in the logo, to the naked eye, this is just a glitzy restaurant.

A dramatic glass frontage is draped in chiffon, and opens to a 95-seat space with a barrelled ceiling soaring above, peachy walls featuring three vertical gardens, and a few darkened, candlelit booths providing intimacy for fours.

There's no bar area, which you should bear in mind before showing up half an hour early, but you can start with cocktails, and should. A saffron syrup gives a whisky old fashioned a sunny hay flavour. A tightly balanced margarita comes with a tangy sumac and salt rim.

Beyond, it's kosher wines. Broadly that just means wine made under the observance of a rabbi using kosher ingredients (no hybrid grapes, for example). Most of Shiloh's wines are mevushal (they're pasteurised so that they may be drunk even if poured by a non-Jewish server). The pinot noir isn't bad for heat-treated wine.

If you're a rare party of two among the big groups of family and friends, the four stage tasting menu gives the broadest sweep of a carte that's dealing with the forbidden mixing of milk and meat by eschewing dairy entirely. We start with a nutty, very mild hummus, which is better once you dig the grilled flatbread beneath the almost sugary zataar on top.

Next come meat pops, individual lamb kofta on shiny skewers rolled in blackened rice puffs. They taste like a juicy-spicy lamb hot dog, amped with harissa aioli.

If you are planning on venturing here as a non-kosher diner, it pays to know a couple of things. Like the fact that kosher meat is not only from approved animals (no pigs, shellfish or, thankfully, owls) but slaughtered in a ritual that involves exsanguination (drawing of the blood) through salt.

As such, Shiloh's menu is intense. Literally. Our tuna poke, with sweet dabs of black garlic puree, soy marinade and aioli tastes over-seasoned but is that due to kosher fish prep or a simple heavy-handedness with the dressing in the kitchen?

It's hard to tell. What I do know is lightweight palates should re-calibrate their menu to incorporate more freshness than our progression entails. We're expecting relief from the pretty salad of shaved and roasted beetroots, bedded on a barley tabbouleh, but there's not much evidence of the supposed passionfruit dressing to bring the sparkle.

The hefty party continues with a crisped confit duck leg, and various preparations of lamb – firm smoky hunks, cooked on skewers over the grill and two tubular, heavily-spiced mousseline sausages. Alongside the duck, charred onion petals, each holding a little herb oil, bring sweetness, but little fat-scything relief.

A medley of grilled zucchini and pickled daikon ribbons with the lamb is better, and there's a purple slaw as a side. If you can still manage the simple paprika-flavoured smashed potato salad at this point, mazel.

So the food might be salty to your taste. The attitude isn't. All respect to floor staff who are both completely professional but willing to break into "Happy Birthday" five times a night. We don't get a rendition, confirming that it's not just a weird part of dessert. It is a big part of what this restaurant is: the best and possibly only place for kosher folk to celebrate.