My, how you've grown, Kylie Kwong.

For 14 years, you ran a squeezy little 50-seat Surry Hills diner with five people in the tiny back kitchen and three people out front. There were no bookings, no backs to the little plastic stools, and a single loo, where there was often a queue as long as the one snaking down the street outside.

Now look at you, all miked-up in your wireless headset running a vast, open kitchen of  11 chefs behind an 18-metre jarrah bar, with 12 floor staff and 140 diners. And you take BOOKINGS. And do COCKTAILS. And have CHAIRS. With BACKS to them. 

Given that every two-bit, street-side Asian noodle bar is now all stools and solo loos, it's the right time for our favourite poster girl for Aussie-Chinese food to grow up and move into the big time.

Supported by a crack industry team that includes partners Andrew Cibej and David King of Vini, Berta and 121 BC, Kwong has installed character and charm into the old Arun Thai site. Restaurant designer George Livissianis, who seems be running his own Macleay Street beautification scheme (The Apollo, Cho Cho San), has engineered a seemingly never-ending, moodily lit space, building in detail from the rusty metallic entrance to the banks of native ferns and glassed-up wine cellar.

To cope with the ramping up of numbers, glassware, plates and napkins stack up at service stations throughout the long narrow space. Yet there's a deliberate effort to keep contact human and personal. Daily specials arrive scrawled on paper and "verballed" by floor staff.

There's a lot to like about this food. A platter of Chinese pickled vegetables with rice crackers ($7) goes from soft crunch to crisp in 0.5 seconds. Four floppy-winged prawn wontons are punchy with brown vinegar ($19). A summery tumble of Hokkien noodles is topped with shredded carrot, cucumber and herbs, ready to toss through the mild Sichuan chilli vinaigrette ($21). Then comes a real show-stopper from the specials list – braised and deep-fried kingfish collars in a sauce of Young Henry's Real Ale, tomato and native basil ($24); pectoral fins as theatrically rampant as Opera House sails. It's a wise kitchen that won't throw out some of the best meat on a fish just because it's clinging to the neck bones.

New favourite: crisp, baked wallaby buns ($14 for two) crammed with gamey, shredded meat, with a nicely astringent relish of native Davidson's plum. Old favourite: white-cut Saskia Beer's chicken, gently poached in master stock, with fresh chilli and a thatch of fresh herbs ($45).

The (awkwardly horizontal) wine list from 121 BC's impish Giorgio De Maria is personal and non-conformist, from a magnum of Sutton Grange Bianco di Nero Cabernet Sauvignon ($100) to a silky Sorrenberg 2013 gamay ($75). Keep an eye out for the "project" wines bottled for the restaurant, the olive-oil infused gin, and Young Henry's quandong-infused draught beer ($8).

Kwong retains her strong sense of ethics, incorporating thoughtfully sourced organic produce, native flora and fauna from wallaby to saltbush greens, and the odd miniature livestock (read "insects") such as crickets in the prawn wontons with sweet chilli. Desserts are a non-event, with only two old-schoolers on offer – a comforting Fair Trade choccy mousse and ginger panna cotta.

But there's a lot of goodwill in the air. Manager Kin Chen is as karmically calm as ever, and everyone else is so goddamn happy to be here, it's like Hillsong with chopsticks. Billy Kwong is back, bigger, and better.

THE LOW-DOWN
Best bit: You can book
Worst bit: Not open for lunch
Go-to dish: Baked wallaby buns with Davidson's plum sauce $10.

Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for the Good Food Guide. This rating is based on the Good Food Guide scoring system.