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I’m not sure how this happened, but it’s 10.30pm, and we just spent three hours having a quick dinner. You know when you look up from an engrossing novel and it’s suddenly dark outside? That feeling where you’re carried away, a little giddy.

So what transpired? When a long meal goes wrong, it can feel like a slow drag through calorie consumption and effortful conversation. This wasn’t that. I was dining with a relative, who is great company and loves a chat. Also, I was the designated driver, and had only had a few sips of wine: so it wasn’t that sort of giddy.

Looking back, it was the hospitality that carried us, driven with verve and zip by the owner, restaurant veteran and consummate host Zeth Romanis.

At first glance there’s nothing startling about Gauge, which is across the road from Ormond Station, tucked off the eight-lane North Road. A slender 45-seater, wider than it is deep, the fit-out is easy to read: bentwood chairs, a banquette, big mirror, a prominent bar. The finishes are black, white and warm timber with azure tiling framing the semi-open kitchen.

It feels smart but familiar. You’ve seen similar bistro menus before, trotting through hot and cold starters, a few pastas, fish and steak, and desserts that have been eaten in Melbourne (and Paris and New York) for decades. There’s wine you may have heard of, wine you’ve never seen, some by the glass. Of course, you can have a gin and tonic.

When you’re a neighbourhood bistro 12 kilometres south-east of the city, success lies in competence and consistency, rather than ripping up the restaurant rule book. When you’re very good – as Gauge is – you also layer in dollops of delight to turn a decent feed into a warm glow that the average diner hankers to repeat.

Delight is delivered in the wine experience, which for us was an exuberant series of small pours to match each dish. It’s there in the food, which isn’t complicated but sings in the detail.

The croquettes ($14) are a melty mess of potato and gruyere barely held together by their crumb coating. Tuna is pepper-pressed and lightly seared, dressed with beetroot, apple and herb oil ($28). It ticks the box as the “ooh-so-pretty” entree, but it’s nicely done, balancing richness and acidity.

Crab and prawn linguine is tossed with sake butter and celery leaves ($44). Sweet and luxuriously slurpy, this is also the point that our quick bite became a bit of a banquet: the kitchen split the dish into two bowls and served it as a mid-course, turning the pasta into a punctuation point on an extended culinary procession.

Steak frites probably should hit the table by itself because it’s an event when it’s done well. Grass-fed Gippsland scotch fillet ($49) is dressed with properly made jus – seasoned not salty, sticky but not cloying – with pub-style thick hot chips that stay crisp to the last. I like steak that’s cooked over charcoal, but there’s something pure and brave about this one, sizzled hard on a flat grill, so the flavour is all beef.

You can also tell a lot about a restaurant from its green salad ($12). This one is a buoyant pile of leaves, tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. The dressing isn’t emulsified: it’s frisky, clean, lovely.

Chocolate mousse ($15) is as simple as a restaurant dessert can get but again, there’s devoted attention to detail. Gauge rolls bitterness with the seasons: I had the creamier 54 per cent chocolate, late-summer version. Chef Collin Schwartz will soon switch to a bitter, wintry, 70 per cent wraparound hug.

There’s something pure and brave about this steak ... the flavour is all beef.

It was at Stokehouse on St Kilda beach in the early 1990s that Zeth Romanis realised being a waiter could be more than a job. He carried that passion to Luxe in St Kilda – his first business as a co-owner in the early noughties – then Falls Creek, running the fancy lodge, Huski.

Romanis opened here in 2011, when Gauge was one-third its current size and run as an espresso bar. (The Age described him in 2012 as a “barista savant”, who would remember his regulars’ coffee orders. He recently revealed on Instagram that the texta-scrawled takeaway cups hidden behind the coffee machine helped him with this friendly magic: “John brings his own cup for a long black; Andy drives a Prius”.)

A few years later, he took over his jeweller and op-shop neighbours, renovating the three premises into this sweet stayer.

Gauge is engaging and honest, driven by an untroubled faith in the deep, human pleasure of gathering around food and wine, those ancient carriers of sustenance and community. It’s an easy place to lose an evening.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine