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To say the new Social Quarter at Chadstone Shopping Centre is overwhelming is both an understatement and perhaps beside the point, given the general size, glitz and artifice of Australia’s largest shopping centre. But even within the context of this behemoth of a mall, which feels as though it has its own gravitational pull, the Quarter has the same blinged-out impact of parts of the Vegas Strip.

The $70 million, 10,350-square-metre “precinct” contains a gaggle of mostly massive businesses, including a circus-themed games parlour, a pop-culture-themed indoor mini-golf course and at least one Asian fusion joint. It’s a little hard to tell where the precinct ends and the regular mall begins; regardless, you’ll not go hungry at Chadstone looking for Asian fusion.

There are a lot of eating options here. Chadstone joins a growing trend of high-end shopping centres recognising the need to offer more than standard mall fare. And the restaurant that most symbolises that objective is Cityfields, a venue that matches Chadstone and the Social Quarter in terms of scale, opulence and ambition.

Given the immensity of the room and the vastness of the menu, the creativity and quality on display are downright impressive.

The venue is capable of seating 600 guests over two levels and offers multiple dining areas (including private rooms) and a large bar. There’s a balcony with a firepit, a massive staircase, lots of mirrors and chrome and chandeliers and a large, open kitchen. Does it feel like a mall restaurant? Kind of. It’s pretty bright, a little impersonal and so big it’s hard to imagine it anywhere but in a shopping centre, airport or casino. But it has authority.

The place is co-owned by Adam Wright-Smith, who also owns Half Acre in South Melbourne. Cityfields’ chef is Tim Martin, formerly of Rockpool and co-winner of the 2015 Good Food Guide Young Chef of the Year award. He’s created a menu that mimics a brasserie, but only somehow. The food is as American as it is Italian as it is French. In the mood for a tuna nicoise salad ($32)? A bowl of pasta ($28-$36)? A cheeseburger ($24)? A 1.2-kilogram T-bone ($150) intended to feed eight people? Martin has you covered.

Given the immensity of the room and the vastness of the menu, the creativity and quality on display are downright impressive. Start with oddly gooey but somehow addictive potato doughnuts ($16), served with creamy fondue and saltbush, or a classic, crunchy, chopped salad ($24) with chickpeas, lettuce, cucumbers and radish, made creamy with the addition of buffalo curd and tangy thanks to pepperoncini.

Pastas are made in-house and feature clever additions such as a generous serving of bone marrow with sproingy busiate coated in tomato pesto ($32).

I didn’t manage one of the giant steaks, but I did try the 250-gram scotch fillet ($54), which came with very good, crispy shoestring fries, was cooked and salted perfectly and which I’d order again in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t order the pepper sauce that I chose to accompany it, however: a touch too sweet with way too few actual peppercorns.

The unexpected winner on the menu? A pithivier (French pie) made using Jerusalem artichokes ($34), the sweet vegetable layered inside buttery pastry and accompanied by a tangy mushroom ketchup and a bracing green salad.

It’s rare for a vaguely steak-focused restaurant to put this much effort and creativity into its vegetarian main, but this dish showcases Martin’s handle on classic technique as well as his desire to go above and beyond.

In press around Cityfields’ opening, much was made of a very fancy machine called a “sling shaker” that’s modelled on a similar contraption at Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Its main function is that it can make a ton of cocktails at once, which is nice, but I’m not sure if the bar has figured out what to do when you only need one and not 12. We ordered their takes on the gin fizz ($22) and the sling ($22), and both were silly and fun when they arrived, but they took about 30 minutes (and no, the bar wasn’t busy; perhaps that was the problem).

Otherwise, service was professional and friendly, with staff working hard to keep the place gleaming. It’s one of hospitality’s most difficult tricks: maintaining quality when quantity is also at play and creating a veneer of fanciness in a place that also needs to cater to families with kids, worn-out shoppers, date-goers and just about any other kind of diner here because it’s convenient. Cityfields does so with grace.

I can’t say I’d make the drive and fight for a parking space solely to eat at this restaurant, but if I was there already, Cityfields would be at the top of my list.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine