Frenchie is a French bistro in Melbourne CBD where every dish and cocktail is $14. It is designed to be shared. Bookings are essential. Walk-ins are usually an hour wait (we’ve tried multiple times on week nights and were told the next table available would be around 9-10pm).
Food
This was the brioche aux escargots, escargot with brioche and garlic butter. It was delicious. My sister had never eaten snails before and she thought this was the best dish of the meal, which is so surprising as she hates slimey textures.
This was poisson du jour, a market fish (barramundi) with roe beurre blanc. The fish was tender. The sauce was creamy and heavenly, with the pops of saltiness coming through from the roe.
This was steak de thon au poivre, a seared tuna with peppercorn sauce and crispy frites. This was okay. The frites were a bit oily, and the tuna was decent. The searing method removed a lot of that fatty fish flavour so it ended up tasting bland. This was the worst dish of the meal.
This frites was only $7 as it came as an add on to our tartare. The seasoning was good, a mix of salt and msg.
This was petits choux de crabe, a blue swimmer crab with cucumber, avocado and choux. The choux was fluffy but a bit dry. The filling was cold, which is correct, but execution fell off for us as it didn’t bring out the sweetness of the crab.
This was steak tartare, a hand cut eye round steak with condiments, parsley powder and saffron aioli. This was decent. It was fatty, earth and creamy but the added saffron gave it a slight odd taste as we’re used to traditional tartares. The baguette was too dense for our liking. Also it was an extra $7 for the bread and butter.
This was steak, just a rump steak with entrecote sauce. The steak was good, tender and a little chewy. The sauce was nice.
The canard confit was good. This confit duck leg with pommes sarladaise was a good ratio of fat and savoury, with the meat falling off the bone.
This was filet mignon de porc. It was a pork fillet with porcini sauce and crispy kale. The meat was tender. The sauce was good, but overall it was too rich as the kale did little to cut through the fat. It was one of the dishes we had leftovers for as it didn’t shine as hard as the other dishes.
This was a winter salad with peach. We really liked how refreshing and sweet the peach and balsamic glaze combination went together.
Service
Service was really good. The Friday lunch spot was packed and the dishes came out and was cleared at a good pace.
Review
Frenchie was great value for French food. We would have to plan it in advance if we return, as the queue time is horrendous (which makes sense for the price!). As a couple, we might not return for a while as there was nothing gastronomically special that would attract us. We would return with interstate / international friends if we needed a fun French spot.
Thanks for reading. Happy eating.
Thanks for reading. Happy eating.
