Sails, on the Lavender Bay foreshore

Sails occupies the waterfront at McMahons Point, at the bottom of Henry Lawson Avenue where the land runs out and Lavender Bay begins. The ferry wharf is next door. Across the water are the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, close enough to be the reason a table near the windows is worth asking for, and in front of them the moored boats that fill this part of the harbour. Even in a city of waterfront rooms, few are this direct: the harbour is not a feature of the room, it is most of it.

The kitchen cooks contemporary Australian food and buys local and seasonal, and it has built its reputation on doing simple things exceptionally well — a harder discipline than it sounds, and the reason dishes that read simply on the page arrive with such care. The menu is unpretentious and changes as the produce changes, and fine wines run alongside, chosen to suit the cooking.

The dining room is comfortable rather than formal, and it does not compete with what is outside it. Taken whole, the restaurant seats 92 or holds 120 for a cocktail party, which is a big room by harbour standards and still one where a table for two is not lost in it. A private dining room sits away from the main floor, quieter and more softly finished, for 20 at a table or 30 standing. Boats come and go past the windows for the whole of lunch.

The day here has two halves. Lunch opens at midday and runs later at the weekend than during the week, which is when the long ones happen; dinner starts at 6pm, seven nights a week. The restaurant is set up for larger tables too: a group can take half of it or the whole of it, and the events team sorts the menu and the timing beforehand. Christmas Day, Melbourne Cup and New Year's Eve are set menus of their own, published ahead of the date.