Just Open: MPD Steak Kitchen, Berwick

The folks behind family restaurant chain Zagame's have opened a high-end steak restaurant in Berwick with some high-end hired help – former Vue executive chef Chris Bonello is at the grill and Australia's best sommelier Banjo Harris Plane wrote the 250-strong wine list.

The name is a nod to the meatpacking district in New York and as you'd expect there are plenty of prime cuts on the menu. Bonello fires up a custom three-metre wood-fired grill, shipped in from the US; steaks are the star ranging from a Ranger's Valley hanger at 200 grams to a 1.2-kilogram O'Connor tomahawk – pair meats with a tomato-heavy house barbecue sauce; truffly mac and cheese; roast pumpkin in honeyed yoghurt or a refreshing wombok, daikon and carrot slaw.

It's a dining room that proves the suburbs can be sexy – and you'd hope so for a $3 million refurb – a two-storey nightclub has been transformed into a sleek steakhouse – think leather booths, tartan carpet and dark lacquered timber floors, although it's a little more ski lodge than American heartland.

Harris Plane's wine selection, from Australian semillons to South African cabernets, is housed in a glass-encased climate controlled "floating" wine cellar raised three metres off the ground; the back-bar is home to 40-plus bourbons and whiskies in keeping with the midwestern theme.

Open Wed-Fri noon-3pm, 5.30pm-10pm; Sat 5.30pm-midnight; Sun noon-3pm, 5.30pm-10pm.

Corner Greaves and Clyde Roads, Berwick; 03 9702 0758, mpdsteakkitchen.com