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Wow, it’s so fancy! I said this three times before even getting to my table at Dainty on Toorak, the just-renovated and rebranded Dainty Sichuan. I’ve been coming here since the restaurant opened in 2009, sitting at chunky timber tables in a spice haze, somewhere between agony and exhilaration, chopsticks poised for the next morsel.

Like many people in Melbourne, the no-nonsense dining room was my gateway to this south-western Chinese cuisine and I revelled in the bold flavours, expert cooking and mouth-numbing ecstasy of Sichuan pepper. The food was the focus, not the decor.

But now? Well, it’s so fancy! The entrance corridor is awash with video projections of pastoral scenes and the dining room seems palatial rather than merely large, with floral banquettes and chic lighting. Pretty glass teapots and bespoke tablecloths add to the sense of occasion.

This new Dainty is confident, the food is excellent – and who doesn’t love a bit of fancy?

The food offering has been substantially rejigged. There’s live seafood, Cantonese yum cha every lunchtime and a ceremonial duck dish that sees glossy roasted bird carved tableside and served three ways. With more than 100 items on the leather-bound menu, it’s easy to get confused – or greedy.

I ordered 10 dishes, the waiter cautioned it was too much and my table loosened their pants for the challenge.

I’ll always have Chongqing chilli chicken, the fiery classic that signals heat in a shower of dry chillies but is actually more of a culinary stun-gun, thanks to a liberal application of Sichuan pepper.

Many dishes come in huge tureens: mullet is slippery soft in a slick bath jazzed with pickled chillies; sliced pork and house-made tofu gleam in a translucent broth.

Dainty’s version of a sausage roll sees slow-cooked beef wrapped in flaky pastry; puffed rice is formed into cakes and dusted with salted yolk for a crunchy snack.

It’s been quite a journey for the Dainty brand. The first restaurant opened on Smith Street, Collingwood in 2003. Owner Tina Li would take a tram to the market to buy ingredients and you’d often hear people at one of the handful of tables marvelling over their first tongue-tingling encounter with this style of food.

In the decades since, the empire has taken its fragrant fire to the CBD, Box Hill, Glen Waverley, Clayton and even Sydney, but it hasn’t all been roses: in 2020, Fair Work fined the group $209,000 for underpaying international workers. There are about 20 outlets now, but South Yarra has long been home base.

In its previous incarnation, it was anointed by luminaries including Rene Redzepi, Dave Chang and Sichuan food authority Fuschia Dunlop. I think they would rate this new Dainty. It’s confident, the food is excellent – and who doesn’t love a bit of fancy?