The real reason people rush to the newest restaurant in town is not just for bragging rights; it's – just in case. Just in case it's the start of something big. There's a real thrill to getting there "before they were famous". For a critic, especially, it's like freshly fallen snow: no footprints.

So meet Yan, a contemporary Singaporean/Chinese restaurant built around the idea of smoked meats ("yan" means smoke in Mandarin), in downtown Wolli Creek.

It's a leap of faith for young co-owners Raymond Lim and Narada Kudinar of popular neighbourhood Woolloomooloo cafe, John Montague, and short-lived CBD cafe Ms Murray.

Housed in the sort of glass-walled, ground-floor corner space of a new-build residential building that would normally go to a Nando's or a Subway; it's a bare-bones fit-out of Scandinavian-style furnishings and rice-paper box lanterns; a jade-green tiled counter acting as kitchen pass.

Singaporean-born Lim worked at the former Galileo restaurant with Masahiko Yomoda for four years. Here, he's creating something refreshingly new by fusing French technique and finesse with his own favourite Singaporean flavour bombs.

The smoked meats – lamb ribs, chicken thigh, pork belly – end up tasting Asian through astute condimentalising. The ribs ($24) are brined, dry-rubbed with cumin, coriander and garlic, slow-smoked and then caramelised over a binchotan grill until fat, meat and smoke cling to the bones as one. The "Asian chimichurri" topping is just as compelling – a chop-chop of coriander, chilli, garlic black vinegar, soy sauce and chilli that's bright and fresh.

Some dishes evoke the hawker stall – just-opened mussels bathed in a lightly jammy chilli sauce ($21) are hauntingly reminiscent of Singapore chilli crab, served with freshly steamed, soft and fluffy white buns that categorically need to stay on the menu in some form or other. Lim says he's considering BYO crab nights to match with various sauces – just do it, I say. Likewise, a short and simple wine list is on the way, says co-owner Kudinar, who is a natural on the floor.

A slaw of slender batons of pear and cucumber in a spicy, tangy dressing ($8) is cooling in an almost Korean way, and "olive rice" ($6), is about as far away from fried rice as you can get; a squeaky-clean mix of polished Japanese sushi rice, slivers of Chinese olives and mustard leaves. And look at that Wolli Creek value – no surer proof of the matrix that exists between rent paid and menu price.

A 200-gram grilled wagyu striploin with a 7+ marble score and a light kabayaki glaze is the most expensive dish at $46. It's a classy piece of meat, if a bit one-dimensional.

There's always a pav these days, but this one ($15) is deconstructed into a thing of beauty, pitting shards of lime meringue against silky smooth liquid nitrogen'd lychee ice-cream (the kitchen is swathed in fog at regular intervals) and a rubble of ginger and pandan jelly.

Time was, young chefs with no dough used to open in low-rent pub dining rooms, getting both location and licence for very little return. Now, it's the high-rises in rapidly gentrifying 'burbs that get the bright young things. I'd be keeping an eye on Epping and Macquarie Park, Mascot and Kogarah if I were you. Just in case.

The low-down

Best bit: Today, Wolli Creek. Tomorrow, the world.

Worst bit: Serving two different meat dishes on the same plate.

Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for the Good Food Guide. This rating is based on the Good Food Guide scoring system.