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The other week, on a cold, wet night – the first properly cold night of the year – I found myself saying something I haven’t uttered in a long time. “Why don’t we check out Chiswick?” My wife dropped her hot toddy in shock. “But you get so annoyed when a restaurant bangs on with all that ‘farm to table’ marketing like it’s the only place to ever use fresh produce. Plus, isn’t it a Sunday lunch place?”

True on both points, but a new chef had started at Chiswick in November – a guy named Daniel Cooper, who was previously at The Prince in Melbourne. Matt Moran may have co-founded Chiswick in 2012, but the Aria chef rarely works any services there, what with all his other restaurants to restaurateur. Cooper, meanwhile, was leading the kitchen at The Prince when it was awarded a hat last year, and I was keen to see what he was bringing to Woollahra.

The glasshouse-style dining room is objectively beautiful: soumak rugs, cascading ferns, views to an immaculate lawn and active vegetable garden. But there are also a lot of surfaces that aren’t ideal for absorbing sound, and the place can get noisy, even on a school night.

Never mind, we’ll have a martini. Join the party! I want Chiswick to succeed. Ah, damn it. This Poor Toms gin martini is not a good cocktail. Wetter than requested, too diluted, and $28. Well, we tried.

What else is there to drink? Head sommelier Georgia Davidson-Brown has assembled a compact, diverse wine list, but she has the night off and no one else seems to know much about it. A 2019 Kate Hill pinot noir from Tasmania ($24 a glass) takes a while to open up, but it’s gorgeously fruit-forward when it does.

Another red, that shall not be named, smells like a shucked oyster left too long in the sun. We send it back, and it’s removed from the bill, but I would argue that the wine shouldn’t have been served in the first place. (Glasses are poured away from the table, so we never see the bottle, either.)

Maybe it’s a smoother operation on a weekend, when the sun’s out, and the sommelier’s on.

Cooper’s autumn menu, for the most part, fares better than the wine service. Witlof cradling a remoulade-ish mix of apple and spanner crab starts things off right for $15 a pop. Bright. Delicate. Fun. A $14 scallop (the seafood kind) is roasted in herb butter and covered with juicy kernels of sweetcorn. Good one.

But a sweet potato scallop ($8) is lukewarm and soft where it should be piping hot and crisp. A gloop of green mayonnaise on top de-crunches the batter even more.

Discs of golden baby beetroot are teamed with shiso leaves and diced orange, and smartly dressed with a citrus vinaigrette ($26). It’s not a bad time by any means; it just feels like a side dish that’s snuck its way into the entree section.

Baked halloumi drenched in wild honey ($32) is far more satisfying, textured with fennel seeds and batons of nashi pear. Fresh mint from the garden is a welcome touch, as is our waiter’s suggestion to order a rosemary flatbread ($14) and swipe it through the leftover honey. What aggressively cold weather outside?

Everyone around us is ordering the whole roast chicken with wood-fired kipflers ($76), and fair enough. Chiswick has long bronzed a chook with the best of them.

For $56 there’s also a meaty assiette of dry-aged duck enhanced with a blood plum sauce and wholegrain mustard. A little brik pastry parcel of confit duck under wilted radicchio is a nice surprise.

King George whiting ($58) is crumbed like a fish finger, and comes with mandolined fennel and creamy sauce gribiche. Give it a squeeze of lemon, ignore the price, and happy days. It’s fine. Except I can’t ignore the price, and I can’t stop thinking about the King George whiting of long, direct flavour that Neil Perry grills down the road at Margaret for just one dollar more.

A slab of strawberry pudding with buttermilk gelato ($18) is much better value when shared between two, and would have been even more cracking with a glass of Egly-Ouriet ratafia de champagne ($28). It’s listed on the dessert menu, but no one can find a bottle.

“Does many things right. All the elements for a hat are here if it could stop fumbling the ball.” That’s from my Chiswick review notes five years ago, but it might have been written last week. And maybe it is a smoother operation on a weekend, when the sun’s out, and the sommelier’s on, and you stick to the chicken and chips.

But prices don’t go down on off-peak nights, and neither should guest expectations. The public garden site could (should) deliver one of the best dining experiences in town. I remain optimistic that Chiswick can provide it.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine