S’age Bistronomy is on a highway corner with not much around it – just a burger shop, a few cheap Indian restaurants and some old-school Japanese joints.

Head chef Tomoyuki Usui bases the food he serves here on the French style and uses just a few ingredients and flavours in each dish. A plate arrives with a small piece of mulloway, a squeeze of black sauce and a seasonal salad. The mulloway has been glazed in mirin, flash roasted six times and finished in a pan. The sauce underneath is a yuzu beurre blanc (butter sauce); the salad is dusted in green-pea powder; and the black sauce is a fermented emulsion that contains, among many other things, kombu, butter, fish sauce and dried squid. A lot of his ideas are based on native ingredients. For example, a smoked oyster and kangaroo tartare with plum powder served in an oyster shell.

The drinks list – typically wine-dominated but with a few classic cocktails and a small selection of sake – is also local-focused. The dark, muted fit-out is still reminiscent of Waqu, the Japanese-fusion restaurant that previously occupied the space. Usui worked there before it closed to move to Baranagaroo.