Restaurant review: Luna, in Canberra's Sydney Building, has the soundtrack to a great night out

Not just a movie soundtrack, but a life soundtrack. A playlist that either reminds you of a past moment or sets the tone for the present one.

And while I am a firm believer in music being a key ingredient to a dining experience, but usually it is for ambience only, aiming to go unnoticed. This dining experience, however, is a little different.

When Luna opened earlier this year it announced it was going to be part cocktail bar, part nightclub, part restaurant and that's exactly what it is. You can go there and treat yourself to a great cocktail after work, stay for a tasty dinner and then jump up for a dance as the dancefloor takes over.

We kick the night off with a couple of cocktails - the Sunburnt sake ($19) for my friend who has just returned from Japan, and a Harry's high ($18) for me. Inspired by Harry Styles and his song Watermelon High, Harry's high is vodka, watermelon syrup, lemon, lime and tonic with a sour candy strap to garnish. The overall cocktail has this slightly sour taste with the citrus notes combining well with the watermelon, but it's the hint of the sour strap's scent as you drink it that gives it this overall nostalgic feel. It's reminiscent of trips to get a bag of sour lollies as a kid but so much better.

The Sunburnt sake, on the other hand, has this refreshing quality to it. With sake, yuzu, aloe water, prosecco and soda, it is sweet but not in the same way as Harry's high. It almost has this soothing effect - the aloe water probably helps with that.

We are here for dinner, however. And just as the DJ starts playing Staying Alive by The Bee Gees (a classic banger) the share plates start to land. The first to arrive is the salmon sashimi with nashi pear and ginger chilli sauce ($22). This is a little different to most sashimi dishes in Canberra in that it's almost like a sashimi lasagna with the nashi pear in between each part of the salmon, adding this delightful crispy element to the dish. Combine this with the tang in the sauce and it's a cracker of a sashimi dish.

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Next up is the miso eggplant ($16) - another dish that there are plenty of options around Canberra. But! This one is the most unique take that I've seen. The eggplant is sliced into chunky rounds, given a yuzu-miso sauce and a sprinkle of puffed grains before being placed on a siopao bun. The bun, while slightly undercooked in the middle in this instance, soaked up all the sauce and added an additional element that other similar dishes lack.

The satay roasted cauliflower with coconut and chilli, curry leaves and nut praline ($15) is up next. The cauliflower was a little overcooked - I would have liked a little more of a bite to the florets. But the flavours were good, although not a super strong peanut flavour coming through in the satay.

Luna has a few different tacos on the menu - a great option for this share-plate style menu that they have - and we choose the beef carne frita ($16). Served with atchara pickles (green papaya, carrot and ginger) as well as a pickled slice of onion, I'm a little underwhelmed by this one. The meat was under-seasoned, and there wasn't a lot of flavour coming through from the pickles - more due to a ratio issue - so it just felt like you were getting a mouthful of meat in every bite.

The pork ribs adobo ($26) however, was probably the highlight of the night. The country-style ribs with soy and garlic glaze and aioli were crispy on the outside and had the perfect amount of glaze - not too much that you feel like you're covered in sauce in a beautiful bar, but also packed full of flavour. The ribs were also cut before they were cooked which meant that as a shared dish, everyone gets the same beautifully crispy ribs experience, which I thought was a nice touch. The aioli was nice, but the ribs were so delicious by themselves, it wasn't needed.

It's onto dessert, and right on time, Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani starts to play as the chocolate and pepperberry panna cotta ($12) and the honey-butter almond cheesecake ($12) hit the table. The panna cotta is perfectly set - with a good jiggle to it - and is one for chocolate lovers. It is quite rich and while it's served with salted caramel whip, brick pastry and boysenberry, I would have liked a little bit more of the berry to cut through that richness. The cheesecake, on the other hand, is perfectly balanced. There's a smokiness to the honeycomb and the bourbon honey gel, which then works beautifully with the sweet cheesecake. It's well thought out and an absolute winner.

Luna is trying to be a lot of things and I wasn't sure that it could pull them all off. But the cocktails were bang on, the food was brilliant and as Ciara's 1, 2 Step marks the opening of the dancefloor, it's clear that its club offering is a hit. Is it a place where you go to have deep and meaningful conversations over dinner? No - it's too loud for that. But is it a place where you can let loose? Yes. And I think that's something Canberra has been missing until now.

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