You can have good service, you can have good food, and you can have good value but rarely do you get all three rolled into one.

In our family’s ongoing search for the holy trinity, we headed to, of all places, Currambine Shopping Centre, to what friends had told us was a hidden gem, tucked incongruously beside the cinema.

We’ve walked past Chapters Bistro many times — and often stopped to peruse the menu in the window, noting my all-time favourite dish, French onion soup — but somehow we’ve never quite made it inside.

Mainly because it’s always been full to bursting and we’ve never quite got our act together to book ahead of time.

In fact, even when we do finally manage to get all our restaurant-booking ducks in a row, there is just one table free when we arrive at 7.45pm on a random Friday — this place must be doing something right.

Full of European classics, the menu has something for everyone, including some amazing-looking vego options and an impressive local and international wine and extensive cocktail list.

I have to start with my beloved soup, of course, meanwhile, my husband goes for the cheese souffle ($25), which the maitre d’ tells us has been a constant menu staple for the past eight years.

Apparently, they dared to remove it once a few years ago but — in a true sign of regular patronage — the outcry forced them to return it a week later.

My husband’s face when he takes his first bite explains why. Rich and creamy, he says it’s everything a cheese souffle should be, matched with a frisee, pear and candied walnut salad which helps keep it just the right side of indulgent without being overwhelming.

My soup ($21) is the star here, though.

While the presentation is traditionally French — with a crouton slathered in Gruyere with Dijon and truffle, sat in the middle of the high-sided ceramic bowl, and grilled to perfection — the deep and intensely beefy stock veers away from the often slightly sweet caramelised onion flavour one usually expects of the dish.

Despite this, I’m absolutely there for it on a cold and rainy evening. I don’t leave a single drop in the bowl.

Great food: Tick.

Next up is a medium-rare 250g black Angus fillet steak ($52) for him and a beef and red wine pie ($36) for me, with a side of glazed carrots atop goat’s curd, harissa honey and mint ($17).

The steak is perfectly cooked and seasoned, accompanied by a large portion of crispy duck fat potatoes, while my pie is matched with a Paris mash and buttered cabbage with bacon. Both also come with lashings of red wine jus.

If you’ve ever met my husband and I, you’d know we’re never short of a word or 40. So when I say dead silence fell over the table as we dug in to the food, it might give you an idea of how delicious it was.

No sludgy gravy-forward slop in this, clearly homemade, pie. Turning the tables on tradition, it has a flaky puff pastry on the bottom and crispy shortcrust in the top, stuffed to the gills with the most tender, slow-cooked beef I’ve ever eaten.

I’d love to tell you we cleared our plates, but the very generous portions means we really don’t manage to do this incredible food justice.

Clearly, we weren’t alone given our lovely and extremely knowledgeable waiter reassures us, as he checks in on how we’re enjoying our meal, that doggy bags are absolutely de rigueur here.

Great value: Tick

And talking of our waiter, as we enjoy our meal, we both remark on how he and his fellow servers are just the right side of attentive, without being obtrusive, which, as many foodies will know is a tricky balance.

The attention to detail is evident from the warm welcome the moment you walk in, to how they serve the wine (into a glass at the table, rather than schlepped from the bar already poured) and even in the kind interactions the staff have with our precocious eight-year-old daughter.

Great service: Tick.

But no restaurant is perfect, right? So what were the flaws in this otherwise pretty perfect meal?

If we were really nitpicking, the vinaigrette on that salad with the souffle could have been a tad sweeter to complement the creamy texture. And being attached to the shopping centre meant the moment you needed the loo, the magical spell of the stylish and buzzy bistro was broken the moment you passed through the back door into the clinically white cider-block corridors to use the shared facilities.

But truly, our biggest gripe was that the adults didn’t have enough room for one of the delicious-sounding desserts, instead being forced to watch Miss 8 rocket her way through mango sorbet with passionfruit and kaffir lime ($16).

We are told it was “divine”.

The verdict: 18/20

Great food, great value for money and some seriously great service

Chapters Bistro

1244 Marmion Ave, Currambine

Open: Wednesday & Thursday, 11.30am-9pm; Friday & Saturday, 11.30am-10pm; Sunday 11.30am-8pm

Contact: 9304 0935, chaptersbistro.com

Bookings: Yes