In many ways, Saint Peter’s ambition was always too big to fit into the teeny dimensions of its original site. Rumours from the kitchen included Julie Niland’s famed lemon tarts being baked in a rickety oven jammed into the corner of the storage room. Of the couple peeling back the drywall in the dining room and discovering brick and sandstone, then leaving it exposed, because that’s all their budget allowed.

If the surrounds were modest, Josh Niland’s cooking was revolutionary: dry-aged fish; crisps made from fish eyes; caramel made from Murray cod fat; garum made from guts and trimmings, cuts rarely given a spotlight. The sourcing, from the country’s finest fisherpeople, was equally impressive.

Now, after launching Fish Butchery, Charcoal Fish, Petermen and Fysh (in Singapore) and winning a few James Beard awards for his cookbooks, Saint Peter finally has a setting worthy of its reputation.

Step into the new dining room in Paddington’s Grand National Hotel and the emotions are of anticipation, clamour, excitement. Walk out, and it’s with a sense that this restaurant fully delivers on its promise, with all the best bits of the Nilands’ career distilled into one site.

There’s the bar, where oysters and snacks reign, from longspine sea urchin on toast to Fish Butchery’s epic tuna cheeseburger.

There’s the a la carte lunch, where barbecued garfish comes with pine nut salsa and crumbed King George whiting comes with (excellent) chips.

Then there’s the tasting menu featuring the likes of fish bones ground into noodles, smoked bar cod roe spun into a tart, and coral trout served with a selection of its parts. A vastly improved wine list by Houston Barakat ties it all together.

It’s the restaurant we’ve all been waiting for, and what’s even more exciting is that it feels like they’re just getting started.