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The first thing you notice about Martinez is that it feels like an airport lounge. A nice airport lounge, though, from a time when people still liked flying, with white, curved, plaster walls, claret-red carpet and fat-corduroy upholstery. Ferns have been potted at every opportunity and a burgundy leather banquette feels like it’s been made for spilling salmon mornay on your slacks before a boarding call to Acapulco Bay.

Chef Alex Wong’s cooking, however, is more of the moment, inspired by southern France and its immediate neighbours, with a fair whack of Surry Hills wine bar thrown in. Raw scampi ($32) is spritzed with white soy and seaweed-infused apple cider vinegar; red mullet bolsters tagliatelle pulsing with a prawn head and lobster butter ($39). The second thing you notice about Martinez is that Wong really knows how to build flavour.

Martinez feels like an airport lounge, in a ‘Dean Martin sings Volare’ way.

The restaurant opened in October at Circular Quay in a tower (sorry, “activated vertical village” according to the building’s website) that also houses a food court and pharmacy beneath offices for Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Deloitte and AMP.

Martinez can be accessed by escalator from a cavernous corporate lobby, which also feels more than a bit like an airport, although not quite in the same “Dean Martin sings Volare” way as above.

On a Friday afternoon, the terrace is a booming ecosystem of navy-suited accountants, craft beer and rosé (overheard on one visit: “I mean, he was driving an Alfa Romeo – so not even an expensive car!“)

If you prefer a quieter innings, there’s a separate bar on the south flank where you can kick back with a martini ($22) and juicy, two-bite hunks of caviar-topped fried quail (two for $18), or hunch over steak frites ($34) with very good fries.

The central dining room looks its best and brightest at lunch, when natural light bounces off gold-veined marble and walnut-topped tables. We start with the Martinez version of the Martinez cocktail ($25), a gin and maraschino-forward classic underlined by cherry vermouth and chocolate bitters. Freezer-chilled glass. Balanced booze. Tick, tick.

The hospitality group in charge also runs nearby fine-diner Lana (where Wong is also chef) and its attached Italian restaurant Grana. The rustic, thick-crusted baguette ($6) at Martinez is house-baked at Grana and essential for soaking up the “petite” bouillabaisse ($44) of bug meat, mussels and clams in a long-flavoured, fregola-loaded bisque. Bonus points for the soup’s zucchini flower stuffed with a delicious scallop and prawn sort-of-meatball.

Before your shirt becomes freckled with rust-coloured broth, there are scallops ($13 each) doused in a sea urchin butter (which tastes like bearnaise would if it had skived off to the beach) and a handsome salad of Ossau-Iraty sheep’s milk cheese, zucchini, almonds and honey ($23) that’s just nice to have around and return to between courses.

Regrettably, the raw tuna in a $32 riff on salade nicoise is overpowered by tomato oil and too many sliced black olives (my bête noire).

From the main carte, spatchcock fricassee ($46) is addictively creamy, thanks to the foie gras that’s stirred through its mushroom sauce. A 400-gram entrecote striploin ($89) is properly rested and pink but, ultimately, Just Another Steak (save your red meat money for the rib-eye at Clam Bar across the road).

I’m more taken by the crumbed pork cutlet ($38) covered from tip to bone in brie and parmesan fondue and revved up with hot mustard, jamon and honey. It’s unapologetically delicious, owing more to Swiss beer halls than anything found in Provence.

Earl Grey-infused creme caramel ($16) is a dessert highlight, shiny with an almost-smoky syrup made from Japanese “black” sugar. Another cocktail may be required to cut through the richness, or a 2009 Chateau d’Arche Sauternes ($365) if you’re from one of the nice floors upstairs.

The wine list has enough diversity to sustain interest across multiple visits, from $13-a-glass house chardonnay to a one-page line-up of Henschke bottles headlined by a 1991 Hill of Grace Shiraz for the rather exact price of $2641.

By my count, a new cafe, bar or restaurant has launched once a fortnight in Circular Quay over the past two years, thanks largely to gung-ho development. This is the kind of smart, “got it all” package the area needs more of, complete with a kiosk selling tuna baguettes to take away and eat al desko.

Fingers crossed it opens for weekend lunch and I can get across more of the bar’s cocktails while the sun’s out. “Cantare, oh-oh …”

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine