Bills is a restaurant of the size and scope we haven’t been seeing in a time of austerity and bootstrapping pop-ups. The restaurant is on Beachwalk Avenue, around the corner from Hard Rock Cafe, and it’s a two-story, 8,450-square-foot beauty, the work of Australian restaurateur, cookbook author and TV host Bill Granger and Japan partners, who imagined his laid-back Aussie approach to food and drink would mesh well with Waikiki’s beach-to-bar vibe.

Downstairs, a casual cafe is the place for those who want to drop in for a quick bite, pastries and fresh fruit juices (the best orange juice in town) or comestibles for the road. Just don’t call it Australian cuisine. 

Instead, like Hawaii’s chop suey cupboard, the menus incorporate a little bit of this and that from the various peoples who populate the land Down Under, from Granger’s travels around the globe and from our back yard.

Adjoining the cafe is a stylish reception area for the spacious main dining room upstairs, which is blessed with high ceilings. A grand skylight and windows, separating interior and lanai, flood the space with natural light by day that, any psychologist would tell you, easily lifts spirits and relaxes diners. The warm, natural wood paneling and beams suggest a surf bar on steroids. I especially love the luxe beach-house comfort of sofa seating and the retro graphic floor tiles in the blue-green of the ocean.

There are several facets to dining here, and the best place to start is with breakfast, for which Bills is best known. It’s a real treat to bask in this house of leisure with morning kick-starters of fresh-squeezed orange juice ($5), white peach bellinis ($10) or Bills daily greens ($8) combining the juices of apples, cucumber, celery, ginger and silverbeet (an Australian reference to Swiss chard, while rockmelon in another drink is cantaloupe), with chia seeds and coconut water.

Granger opened his first restaurant in Sydney in 1993, which became famous for the best scrambled eggs and hotcakes in town. Since then he’s opened four restaurants in Japan and, in 2011, opened in Notting Hill, London. The Waikiki restaurant marks his first foray stateside.

A few things have been lost in translation between Australia and Hawaii, but nothing that can’t be overcome. I imagine there’s a degree of mutual cultural shock that comes from learning about local ingredients, the local palate and finding a niche in a town with its own notions of what’s "best."

You can get those touted scrambled organic eggs with sourdough toast ($12) or with a full, hearty Aussie breakfast also featuring fennel sausage, ham, miso marinated mushrooms, cumin roast tomato and the toast ($16). The eggs are quite good, though I’d put these just behind the new Koko Head Cafe’s French omelet and Chez Kenzo’s omelets for fluffiness and flavor.

What you get depends on who’s in the kitchen. I’ve heard others describe the food as bland. I thought quite a lot of salt goes into dinner entrees. Some dishes benefit more than others. For instance, kim chee fried rice ($16) inspired by the local favorite is Bill-ified with the addition of shredded crab meat, a small helping of sliced chorizo and swapping the usual white rice for brown rice. I enjoyed it, salt and all.

The restaurant’s claim to fame is its ricotta pancakes. I tried them three times, and they incrementally improved each time, though they’re far from the "lightness and air" I’d been led to expect. In the likelihood that they’re still acclimating to Hawaii’s high humidity, these might improve further. 

Breakfast is safe. Elsewhere, the vaguely Australia meets Southeast Asia meets Hawaii menu doesn’t always gel. It has the feel of someone experimenting with fusion for the first time.

One thing Americans can’t handle is ambiguity. That’s why we love clear-cut themes and simple catchphrases. I get that Bills wants to address a local audience by putting an Aussie spin on local dishes, but it’s confusing when it’s so far off the mark that it’s another dish entirely, as with a tuna poke and brown rice bowl ($12) that tastes like a soupless pho. In that case, don’t use a word like "poke," which comes loaded with set flavor expectations.

I can appreciate the healthful aspects of the combination of fish, rice, basil, cilantro, bean sprouts, cucumber, lemon and lime, but not a lot of locals can stomach a mouthful of the strong-flavored herbs with plain cubed ahi sashimi, with no sauce or seasoning in sight. 

The confusion is not restricted to locals. Upon seeing the word "tuna," one Australian gentleman assumed the fish would be cooked.

Going native in America also meant introducing pizzas, served unsliced, to the menu. There’s a basic margherita ($14) and a trio of crisp white pizzas. We opted for a savory combination of mushroom, spinach, Parmesan and lemon ($14) that was quite good, though a heavy helping of lemon zest gave it a dessertlike quality.

I think vegetarians will find Bills a welcome addition because there are a lot of green choices on the menu. Those watching their diets will also find more healthful options to french fries, such as cassava chips served with a delicious romesco, or red bell pepper sauce ($6), zucchini fries with tahini yogurt ($7), and edamame hummus and quinoa falafel served with roasted vegetables and flatbread ($8).

One of my favorite items on the dinner menu was a refreshing salad of greens, cilantro and mint topped with salmon ($12), with pink grapefruit and a light coconut caramel dressing. 

Also enjoyable: a prawn and chili linguine ($18), low on spice but with decent garlic flavor. Disregard the word "chilli" when you see it, undiscernible in another dish of pan-fried chili and ginger snapper ($23).

I probably won’t order yellow fish curry ($18) again, served with butternut squash that seemed a clumsy attempt at reproducing Vietnamese flavors without the proper balance of fish sauce. It was inedible. The curry itself, a credible Thai-style sour, still did not cut the fishiness of the fish.

The menu I like best is downstairs, in the cafe, where a simple approach to food, drink, coffee and desserts means there’s less tinkering and, therefore, less to mess up.

I really enjoyed a coconut chicken "chowder" salad ($11), a rice-scoop-size mound of coconut chicken salad served beside a Vietnamese-style salad of nuoc cham cabbage slaw, basil, cilantro, mint and cucumbers. A miniature sandwich of crisp pork belly with tomato chili jam ($12) was divine. 

On a hot day I opted for homemade "lemonade" ($4), which isn’t like the fresh juice we know, but soda water with lemon.

Dessert was an olive oil and pistachio muffin, which I loved for its crunch.

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.