As precincts go, the Kingston Foreshore is a confounding one: so clean and stark and dark, so brisk and unexpectedly nautical in a boardwalk and yachting way. I mean, there's a veritable canal running through the area, wide and deep and it makes you frown in confusion at what it's doing here. And in front of the canal are a growing number of restaurants, which to my mind also reflects this slightly shifted-universe feeling and thematic uncertainty.

Still, it all adds to the sense of adventure, especially when there's a wind fit for the Southern Ocean blowing through the boardwalk so you're pleased to dash through a door into a warm room.

The door tonight leads to C Dine, which I'm thinking is the more formal end of foreshore dining – although it's not old-fashioned formal; more dark decor, high-back seating, structured-menu formal. C Dine has what we might have once described as a reef and beef theme: a seafood list and a steak list, with just a couple of nods to people not prepared to go with the flow who insist on chicken or a vegetarian meal.

The olive and rosemary buns ($2.80 each) are tight dense little affairs and it's good to start with this kind of character. Then we're straight to the steak tartare​ ($18), the raw fine-chopped steak dish making an appearance on lots of menus. C Dine applies its own experimentation to this most excellent of concepts. The steak is not chopped as fine as it normally would be; the egg is not raw on top, but is served as a whole, crumbled and fried egg, which spills its yolk over the meat once opened. The dish is unfortunately crisscrossed with aioli which tastes of little and contributes little. In my book, if a sauce is there it should be distinct and useful, not simply decorative. I am wedded to the traditional form of this dish so I'd prefer they dropped the experimentation, but the meat tastes good, while rather overdone with lemon, and this dish is a decent start.

In the char-grilled pickled octopus (sustainably sourced), salsa verde, braised leek, potato fondant, toasted almonds ($18), the octopus tentacles are really good, well cooked, tender, gently citrusy​ and very tangy, plus the char of the grill. The rounds of soft leek and highly turned rounds of fried potato are enjoyable and not greasy, but this might be a better entree if it focused simply on the octopus and dark green intense pesto.

The paella (again sustainably sourced) involves black cobia, scampi, mussels, scallops, clams, prawns, chorizo, saffron, Spanish bomba rice ($36). It's a good dish, with sticky, intense rice – great with seafood stock and loads of little shellfish piled in here, slices of chorizo, as well as a big handful of coriander on top. I like the robust, palate-whacking nature of this paella; it's served in its own little frypan, in which it has clearly been cooked, and this is a good thing.

The C and Land free-range grassland beef sirloin (250g, hormone and antibiotic free, minimum marble score 2+) is served with half a grilled lobster, dipping salts, creamed horseradish, red wine jus and bearnaise sauce ($46). The half lobster is less than exciting and also overwhelmed by the charcoal treatment, and I'm finding the board a little ungainly, with stuff dripping off the side. The carrots alongside would be better left whole than turned into rectangles like building blocks, but they're buttery and suitably luxurious. The sirloin is a thick hunk of meat served with its condiments on a board – as much of the food is tonight. You get a choice of six cooking temperatures, from blue at 45 degrees, to rare 52, medium rare 57, medium 63, medium well 68, and well done 74, with helpful descriptions – although we would defy anyone to order well done, with the description "grey, cooked through, dry".

Perhaps this is a warning from the chef, rather than an enticement. We order blue, described as "cool, completely red, slightly juicy", and the meat that arrives surprises us a little – it's a uniform gentle pink, charred on the outside and feels, to me, cooked through. I'm not a fan of the highly charcoal flavour of the crust, but the meat is very good, tender, easy to eat, a lovely texture, and a good piece of meat well handled.

C Dine appears popular – there are plenty of people here on a Tuesday night, and it's warm and comfortable with very good and willing service throughout our meal. We are not entirely sure whether the aim is casual or upmarket – there is an extensive outdoor eating area, the wait staff are in jeans and the oversized menu is laminated. There's a fish tank – decorative, by the looks, rather than a holding tank for dinner – and a meat cabinet where meat is hanging to age. There's a formality about the place in the dark decor and the three-course menu structure, but there's a hint that you could party here in summer with an extensive cocktail list, fairy lights and a constant beat to the music. It's a mix of genres, including even a nod to families with a kids' menu – a good kids' menu, home-made and fresh.

The wine list has loads of options by the glass – which you'd need quite a turnover to sustain, with the glass options focused at the lower cost end; bottles that sell for about the $50 mark. The entire list, in fact, keeps prices in check. Whites are heavy on riesling and sauvignon styles, presumably to match the seafood list, and there's a welcome nod to the local winemakers across the list.

The doughnuts, poached corella pears, rhubarb ice-cream, sumac sugar, strawberry puree and moscato gelee ($16) is a dessert contrasting hot and cold, and served also on a board. The doughnuts are not so much doughnuts as warm little fried pastries, enclosing a runny filling and we like them. The half pear is highly aromatic from its poaching but served chilled and the rhubarb ice-cream is delicate.

You get the sense that the kitchen is focused on serious cooking from scratch and a menu that sources its meat and seafood carefully. The menu, and perhaps the set-up, would perhaps benefit from being pared​ back and more simply focused. Yet C Dine is clearly serving a niche here on the foreshore, and it also feels like it might have quite a different character at a different time of year, with summer skies and hot evenings dining outdoors beside the cooling waters of a foreshore canal.