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The thing that hotel restaurants have that normal restaurants don’t have, is space. Sydney Common stretches across the first floor of the Sheraton Grand, from the open-plan dining rooms to a raised circular Champagne Bar and a flash private room for 16.

They could turn it into 40 different rooms and make more money per night in accommodation than they would in hospitality. But then, would everyone come to stay if there wasn’t a drawcard restaurant?

Especially one opposite Hyde Park, a giant lozenge of Victoriana greenery that’s a living history of Sydney town. And especially one helmed by a very tall young chef named Jamie Robertson, whose CV includes Michelin-starred The Capital in London, and Sydney’s Ester and The Bridge Room. Robertson was hand-picked by former Sepia chef Martin Benn for Society in Melbourne, but what with Benn exiting, and the odd pandemic, that idea disappeared in smoke.

In a switcheroo, Benn has been consulting on the opening of Sydney Common, working with Robertson on what is already a compelling offering for the CBD. The “Bennertson” menu is seasonal, contemporary, wood-fired and Japanese-inflected. If you didn’t know Benn was involved, you’d say he’d been ripped off, but he is, so he’s done it to himself.

Sydney Common is not common at all, but doing something fresh, taking the status quo and mixing it up for the future.

Melbourne-based design studio Mitchell and Eades has created a clever series of dining spaces differentiated by changing parquetry, tables, columns and textures. The kitchen is open, with chefs working on broad counters and hearths in full view.

Let’s start with a mini martini, because it’s so teensy and cute, and you still get a martini fix – icy cold, dry, olive – for $13. It’s like a chaser without anything to chase. There are rock oysters with finger lime, caviar with potato crisps, and a highly compatible dish of guanciale (cured pork jowl), finely sliced and interleaved with white nectarine in a pink peppercorn oil ($22).

Small hand-formed, serrated-edge agnolotti ($34) are exceptionally good, stuffed with ricotta and tiny flecks of LP’s mortadella. Nestled on a sheet of mortadella and sauced with a nurturing emulsion of roasted chicken stock, fried sage, brown butter and lemon juice, it’s as comforting as eating little cushions.

But so far, no char. Time for hot-smoked beef tongue ($26), with a sizeable amount of finely sliced, tender tongue wriggled onto a skewer, brushed with smoked beef fat, and cooked over robata coals. Love this, especially the peppy green spring onion dressing that brings it all home.

More char comes with grilled romano beans; sweet and lovely and heavily pimped with paprika egg sauce, slightly bitter roasted buckwheat tea and cured egg yolk ($19). Even better, pointy-headed sugarloaf cabbage ($14) is halved, brushed with smoked olive oil and smoked chilli paste, then Josper-roasted, emerging wilted, sweet, spicy and, well, smoky.

Much of the food comes in look-at-me copper pans, notably woodfire-roasted chicken ($36/$65) that has been brined, dried and roasted over ironbark and served with a smooth panzanella puree – blitzed chargrilled sourdough, tomatoes, and garlic, finished with a sauce of roast chicken and smoked chicken fat. It’s one of the rare un-relaxed dishes tonight; the flesh a little set. Good, but there are more interesting choices.

Wine service is passionate and well-informed, speaking not only of the wine but of the people who made it, whether it be a floral, citrussy Domaine Berthier L’Instant Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley ($24 a glass) or a delicious Terra Sancta Mysterious Digging Pinot Noir ($90) from Central Otago.

Head pastry chef Aarti Dewan gets in the last word, with a tar-black dessert of kurozato Japanese black sugar caramel poured over a steamed goat’s milk pudding ($18), enlivened with smoked tea. Always, the umami twist.

That’s the thing about Sydney Common – it’s not common at all, but doing something fresh, taking the status quo and mixing it up for the future. It may not be able to escape its destiny as a restaurant inside a hotel, but the quality – of the thinking, produce, technique and intent of those concerned – is uncommonly good.