I think this might be the clue to what's actually going on here.

'PS would ask me whether I wanted to do an exposure compensation and then it would open the file.'

I suspect you can change the Bridge default for opening files in Preferences, or perhaps you can right-click the picture and choose how to open it (I don't have a Mac so I'm not sure). The advantage is that if you are happy with the result 'as is' then you have by-passed ACR completely, and I can see why you might want to do that if you don't need to make further adjustments. On the other hand, if when you open directly into PS your Raw file opens as a Photoshop Object (I think it must do that as Photoshop can't read Raw files without some sort of intervening transformation), then if you are not completely happy with the result, you may still have the option of moving back and forth between PS and ACR to tweak white balance or other factors that if changed in Photoshop would degrade the quality. I start there, then know I can tweak the image further (white balance, exposure, regain highlight detail, increase vibrance) without the loss of quality I would get if I changed those things within PS. But ACR can simulate your in-camera settings (see the Camera Calibration icon). The problem there is that the default settings for viewing photos in ACR are not the ones you set in-camera (in my version they are more like the camera's 'Neutral' setting). It sounds as if your software has defaulted to open Raw files in Camera Raw. The difference is whether the software uses your in-camera settings to display them or some other settings of its own. They contain all the information that hit the sensor (more or less) and the adjustments are what makes the picture visible. All Raw files are adjusted in order to be visible onscreen.

How to open camera raw in photoshop cc