Creamy, flavourful, rich, bold, and unapologetically calorific – that is how many of us see French food. And we can't get enough of it, according to chefs and restaurateurs who are opening new interpretations of traditional French bistros across the country.
But this renewed hunger for all things French is not for healthier versions of the favourites. It is in fact the menu mainstays such as soufflés, steak frites, duck confit and liver parfaits, full of starch and fat, that are tempting diners back to French cuisine.
Chef Guillaume Brahimi first opened his Bistro Guillaume, which is one of many bistros named in this year's Australia's Top 500 Restaurants revealed this week, in Melbourne's Crown Casino eight years ago, and has since expanded his bistro business to Perth and last year to Sydney.
Leading chefs and restaurateurs will vote on the list and the top 100 will be announced at a gala dinner on June 19 at The Star in Sydney.
Is he using less butter these days? "No. Not at all!" he laughs.
Considering his two biggest sellers currently are the Roquefort cheese soufflé and the extravagant dessert trolley, customers clearly aren't demanding a detox menu.
"But we have some salads in the bistros, as we want to people to feel like they can come to us two or three times a week," he says.
Traditional flavours
Mary Randles, owner of Brisbane's newly opened Madame Rouge, says there are no apologies on the menu. Together with husband and chef Philip Johnson, Randles says they have created a restaurant that is "uncompromising, classic, traditional French", with the biggest sellers being goat cheese soufflé and steak frites.
"We are very much about those classic dishes, we haven't altered them at all," Randles says. "With the steak frites, we wondered if people would change that to steak and salad, with the chips on the side, but that hasn't happened, at all."
Randles even took the old school approach with the décor: here you'll find quintessential heavy red drapes, candlelight, leather banquettes, dark timber panelling.
"We want to transport people to another place, but also to another era, when people didn't worry about calorie content and how much butter was in the sauce," she says.
"People sit down and actually enjoy what's put on a plate in front of them, without over-analysing it. French food is good for the soul, it's just honest food on a plate. Diners are done with the foams and smears, they're coming back to food that tastes like food again."
Seasonal approach
Brahimi says the appeal of French food, which he calls the "cornerstone of all cuisine", is its hero treatment of seasonal ingredients.
"We are all about produce of the season," he says. "It's not a question of trends. The seasons go hand in hand with our cooking. We look forward to lamb in spring, stonefruit in summer, that's what French cooking is all about."
The French bistro is also being reimagined by a new generation of restaurateurs. At Restaurant Hubert in Sydney, chef Daniel Pepperell lightens classic French cooking with a Japanese touch, while Bistro Rex in Sydney's Potts Point has made a French-colonial approach its point of difference, under chefs Jo Ward (ex Vincent, Bloodwood) and Michelle Powell.
"I'm using French technique and ingredients, but keeping it quite fresh," Ward explains. "One of our popular entrees is a prawn beignet, a traditional dessert fritter but ours is savoury. I serve it with a cucumber, spring onion and coriander salad with fermented chili aioli – so taking a Vietnamese banh mi roll and turning it into a refreshing entree."
Not surprisingly, Ward admits the two best sellers at Rex are duck parfait and steak frites. "You don't really want to change those, they're classics for a reason!"
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