Sometimes you can read all these good write-ups about a place, but sometimes just learning that Passionfruit Creme Brulee with Rockmelon Sorbet and Assorted Ice Cream is on the dessert menu is enough to make you sprint there.

So that’s how we ended up at Elysium in Randwick recently.

It’s a casual European restaurant with a touch of fancypants about it – it’s run by an ex-Otto sous chef with London Michelin star cred. But it’s the casualness that makes it nice – somewhere you can have a midweek dinner that feels a touch special yet won’t bring on bank statement dread next month.

It has a bistro feel, with the cute little banquettes and old school Art Nouveau prints on the wall. It reminded me a bit of Tabou in Surry Hills, except I like Elysium a hell of a lot more. (I’ve only been to Tabou once but found it a mite over-rated.)

We were very hungry, so I ploughed into the bread and then a Roast Pumpkin Tarte Fine with Rocket Lettuce, Fourme D’Ambert Blue Cheese, Pine nuts and Vincotto. Blue cheese is always a bit of a wild card: particularly when it strong-arms your palate into can’t-taste-anything-else submission. No wonder people run from the mere sighting of le fromage bleu. But the Fourme D’Ambert was a lovely mild one, with the right hint of sweetness and richness. With that winning ingredient, the tarte fine was exactly that.

Will had Half A Roast Duck With Blood Orange, Parsnip Puree and Green Beans and said the blood orange was a wonderfully light counterbalance to the fatty duck hit (we can’t figure out why ducks become such tubby grease-factories given they just spend all their time swimming, or maybe we have a very picturebook-centric misconception of a duck’s regimen, which is highly likely).

Sadly, there wasn’t any Passionfruit Brulee on the dessert menu that night, but the Almond Tuile with Scoops of Lemon, Cinnamon and Hazelnut Ice Cream was a good consolation prize.

I’ll still be hanging out for the brulee – it’s one of several good reasons to return.

Elysium, 133 Avoca Street, Randwick NSW (02) 9398 7766