This indoor-outdoor Argentinian-inspired grillfest boasts Balmain-to-Buenos Aires vibes

Dining out is great, but dining outside is even better. There’s a special sense of freedom to drinking a margarita and nibbling empanadas while basking in the last of the day’s rays.

Since Casa Esquina opened on February 15, however, the weather has been volatile, so it’s just as well they have options. There is some undercover seating outside, or you can move into the buzzy, long walk-in bar that ends in the grill kitchen. Or head upstairs to a light-filled dining room that spills out onto a curved concrete balcony, lined with stools and fringed by the leaves of two magnificent 80-year-old camphor laurel trees.

Sometimes being sent to dine indoors by the weather feels like punishment, but Michael Fegent of Atticus Hospitality (Tequila Mockingbird, Esteban) has done a great job with this reinvention of the former Efendy site. The clean lines of poured concrete, rotating grills, shapely chairs, artful lamps and random vignettes of cactus against Victorian railing give a real Balmain-to-Buenos Aires vibe.

Fegent and head chef Will Quartel recently ate their way through Argentina, and have had fun with a menu that runs to 10 different grills from the parrilla, from Gundagai lamb tomahawk chops to a one-kilogram dry-aged Ranger’s Valley Black Market rib-eye.

To begin, it’s hard to resist the empanadas, fashioned in rough, rustic pastry, enclosing chicken and chorizo or juicy beef (both $10), or try the playful kangaroo and maraschino cherry version ($12). Consider also Esquina’s take on a Fernandito, with Fernet-Branca and cola foam ($23) or a salt-rimmed margarita of Patron Silver, Cointreau and lime ($21).

Quartel hails from Washington, DC, and has proudly put his grandmother’s lemon chess pie (a Southern US classic) on the menu, in another clue to the free-ranging approach. The kitchen loves a char – there’s a sweet potato ($15) that comes in a completely blackened sarcophagus, split open at the table to show off its fluorescent orange flesh. Waitstaff suggest the skin can be eaten, but I wouldn’t.

Besides, blackened mahimahi and black garlic pasta await for those who want it painted black. Paella, too, is pitch-black with squid ink, topped with fat lobes of Cowra lamb sweetbreads and curls of prawns ($36). It’s listed as an entree (it isn’t), and quickly makes your face look, shall we say, Halloween-ish.

Thank you for waiting; we are now ready to discuss the steak. Because if you know anything about cooking over coals, then you’ll know the importance of being patient. Order even a modestly sized 275-gram wodge of Tajima wagyu picanha ($76), or rump cut fringed with fat, and you’ll be in for a 30- to 40-minute wait (which is why the country invented its cocktails and snacks, let’s face it).

This isn’t meat slapped on a hot griddle and sent out sizzling. Its exposure to heat is slow and steady, leaving the meat consistently ruby-pink medium-rare from one side to the other, and the outside darkly bitumenised. Add an OK chimichurri ($3) of parsley, garlic and vinegar for acidity and piquancy.

Red wine is required, and who better to make it than Telmo Rodriguez, one of Spain’s most passionate pioneers, whose fleshy, floral LZ tempranillo ($100) is pure village-style Rioja.

Alfajores ($20) are cutely done here: all crisp, biscuity dacquoise sandwiching rich dulce de leche and toasted coconut, with way too much chocolate poured over the top.

There’s a slight disconnect when you can’t see, hear or smell your steak cooking, so make a point of checking out the grills yourself to close that gap. Or come for lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday when a spit grill and barbecue is set up outside for porchetta, chorizo and morcilla in rolls and burgers; or the monthly Sunday lunch asado with a whole pig or lamb on the cross, plus live music ($155 a head).

In other words, Casa Esquina has loads and loads of options and ideas. But in a changing world, and climate, you can’t have too many.