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People often ask me how I choose a restaurant to review. Sometimes it’s a place that crosses my radar on social media. Sometimes I see appealing signage as I trundle past on a tram; the right font can signal great coffee, a theory I’ve tested many times.

Recently, people in my yoga class raved about their new Saturday-night delight, so I left my downward dog at home to check it out. Every so often I wonder what’s going on in a particular suburb and head there to window-snack.

Occasionally, delightfully, emails from diners extol the virtues of their unsung local. This was the case with Bottarga, an 18-seat fine dining restaurant in Brighton. “A hidden gem” with “exquisite delicacies” and “exceptional dining”, gushed the missives. I was intrigued.

My restaurant radar really started pinging when I tried to visit on a Tuesday night and the place was booked out. They must be doing something right, I thought.

And indeed they are. At a time when many restaurants are owned by groups and run by committee, this tiny place is driven by two people on the smell of an olive-oily rag. Somi Paremanee and her partner Federico Bizzaro opened their dream business two years ago. He’s a chef from Lombardy in the north of Italy, but most of his work experience has been in Melbourne, at restaurants including Sosta Cucina and Scopri.

Paremanee is from Thailand, where her family ran catering businesses and restaurants; she also owned a cafe in Bangkok. Together, they percolated a dream to open a contemporary Italian restaurant with Asian influences.

Fusion is a high-wire act, but the riskiest dish at Bottarga is also among its most successful.

It’s in the room which was once Curly Whiskers, another quirky fine diner. The layout is the same: an L-shaped dining room wraps around an open kitchen, lending a dinner-party atmosphere to the closest tables. Black marble tabletops, wingback leather chairs, gold accents and decorative plates signal upscale glamour. Accomplished, attentive service sets a tone, too.

Diners choose from a two- or three-course menu ($65 or $80) with additional charges for nibbles, sides and premium mains. It’s decent value, especially when you consider detailed touches like the garlic “pearl” (a sodium alginate sphere) that sits atop an Akoya oyster. These pert oysters are farmed in Western Australia for their creamy, saline flesh and shiny pearls. The molecular gastronomy techniques that produce spherification – the making of semi-solid spheres out of liquids that “burst” in the mouth – are considered passé these days, but this whimsical snack pays its way.

Fusion is a high-wire act, but the riskiest dish at Bottarga is also among its most successful. Culurgiones are a Sardinian specialty, a stuffed pasta sealed with intricate pleats and filled with potato and pecorino. Not here. Bottarga’s culurgiones encase prawn mousse and paddle in Thai red curry. It sounds odd, but pasta is a cousin of dumplings and the coconutty sauce – a recipe from Somi’s mother – is redolent of galangal and lemongrass, flavours that work well with prawn.

From here, it’s an easy jump to linguine with lobster sauce. Cuttlefish ink is used to dye some pasta strands black; chequerboard tones are twirled on the plate alongside a rich bisque. Rounded saffron notes and gentle spark from paprika and pimenton play nicely with generous nubbins of shellfish. Bottarga, an umami-laden cured roe as well as the restaurant’s namesake, is a grated garnish. This is a preening dish that revels in its luxury but there’s no denying its deliciousness.

Burratina – a knot of milky-fresh cheese – is served with a braise of onion and fennel and scattered with dried-olive crumb. The balance of sweet, sour and aniseed is good but I could have done with some pruning of the garnish, a thick forest of bronze fennel.

I have similar misgivings about the pithivier, a French puff-pastry pie with etched swirls on its domed lid. The vegetarian rendition here has an excellent filling of mushrooms and comte cheese, but the dish loses its way with a cacophony of accompaniments: parsnip puree and smooth lentil “chutney” sit in uneasy conversation.

There’s theatre in the desserts. Easy-to-love tiramisu is served in a plant pot; a chocolate tart shell is filled with cherry compote and served with gorgonzola ice-cream. Unusual, yes, but fruit conserve and blue cheese work together: file it under interesting if not transporting.

Many restaurants play it safe, looking over their shoulders at what everyone else is doing. Bottarga doesn’t feel like that. Ambitious overreach and the restrictions of a tiny workspace can lead to the occasional culinary misstep but it’s easy to see why customers would be charmed by the passion, eagerness and – of course – the lobster and linguine loveliness.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine