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KB Lager kitsch. RSL chic. World Series Cricket retro. I’m not sure what we’re calling it, exactly, but next-generation operators decking out old pubs and bars with Australiana is one of the better hospitality trends of the past nine years.

Paddington’s Unicorn Hotel was a pioneer of the form, relaunched in 2015 and sporting cast iron cockatoos, native flora and beautiful white swans made from old black car tyres. It was also home to the greatest schnitzel NSW has ever known, featuring wing-attached chicken breast, butter-forward mash and fat-enhanced gravy. The Oxford Street boozer’s lease changed hands a couple of months ago, which was a bloody shame because great pub food is hard to find.

Pubs with great food, sure. Refurbished hotels from Newport to the Nepean know their way around a prawn spaghetti. But Australian pub food as a strict set of standards (schnitzel, battered seafood, a Sunday roast special) too often takes the form of cut-price produce cooked by chefs who aren’t paid enough to care. The job description might as well read, “Just defrost some chips, discount a parma, and get punters through the door to play Queen of the Nile”.

Redfern, at least, has The Bat & Ball. If you’ve ever walked to the Sydney Cricket Ground from Cleveland Street, you may have found yourself at the pub on the corner of South Dowling. You may also recall it didn’t have much going for it except for beer and a functioning roof. In August, however, the site reopened under the stewardship of Zac Godbolt, Dan McBride and Dynn Szmulewicz (co-owners of Enmore Country Club), chef Cameron Votano (BTB Kirribilli), and Rachael Paul, former venue manager of Redfern’s The Sunshine Inn. Goodbye, pokies; hello, post-footy DJs and oysters. There’s Bob Dylan and Creedence on the playlist, and you can bring your dog. Sold.

Like Enmore Country Club (and The Unicorn, and Marrickville’s Bob Hawke Beer & Leisure Centre), the new-look Bat & Ball is inspired by the age of the winged keel, Mondo Rock and Rod Marsh. There are caramel tiles, a pool comp and vintage coasters, and framed souvenir tea-towels from Vanuatu and Gulgong. The neenish tart makes an appearance, albeit as a rich slice layered with chocolate ganache and plum jam ($15), rather than the two-toned pink and brown pastry found in the hot bread shop of every regional town.

Votano largely sticks to the pub-food script, with a few tangents here and there. Macadamia cream, for instance, is piled with blistered shishito peppers and a savoury mix of enoki and wood-ear mushrooms ($18). Not at all bad with toasted miche sourdough ($6) and a competitively priced negroni ($16). A ploughman’s lunch comes with prosciutto, pickles, cheddar and rockmelon salsa ($25), while a $22 serve of hot wings holds your interest thanks to fermented chilli (although you may be inclined to dial up the heat with an extra dash of Frank’s RedHot from the condiment station).

How’s the schnitzel? Pretty bloody good: $27 and crumbed with panko, oats and pulsed grains for extra crunch. The mash is appropriately thick and smooth; the chicken and beef stock gravy fortified with tomato paste and white pepper. I’m also into the $29 beer-battered market fish and chips, currently featuring skin-on fries, creme fraiche tartare and side bowl of “silky peas” (blitzed with reduced stock, cream and garlic, and finished with a drizzle of dill oil – terrific for dipping hunks of precision-battered bream or gurnard).

Whole Beast Butchery supplies the dry-aged beef for a juicy, well-sealed burger ($25 with fries) stacked with lettuce, tomato and cheese. The medium-rare porterhouse probably isn’t topping anyone’s best steak-ever list, but it’s still a perfectly fine strip of meat for $32 with chips and salad. The only main I would think twice about ordering again is the pork chop ($29) covered in a rust-coloured sauce throbbing with capers, mustard dill pickles and butter. It’s bearable in small amounts, like radiation and Keith Urban, but there’s almost more sauce than pig.

Happy-hour beers are $7, though, and there’s a retail fridge where you can buy wine to take home, or open a bottle at the bar and pay $15 corkage. You won’t be asked to order through a QR code and your phone – you can speak to an actual person – and staff know how to make a respectable Old Fashioned ($22) to pair with deep-fried apple pie pooled in custard ($13). Is all this just nostalgia bait at the end of the day? Probably, yes, but I’ll take the hook. More pubs could do with a vintage tea towel display and neenish tart; less so, another pokie room and hormone-pumped parmigiana.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine