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La Buvette is that kind of place, in tune with the ebbs and flows of Challis Avenue, inspired by a love of Paris and the core tenets of its restaurants: good wine, classic technique and an air of cultivated insouciance.
The bookings are in demand at La Buvette, but once they have them, nobody wants them. They’re not cancelling, mind you, far from it – it’s almost impossible to book a slot outside of 4pm and 8.30pm – it’s just that once they’ve secured the rights to one of the nine bookable stools inside, then breezed past the buzz of the streetside tables on the way in, out front is the only spot they want to sit.
Figures. This is Potts Point, after all, home of Sydney’s Paris quarter. And while you can’t smoke outside, the outdoor tables are certainly the place to both people-watch and be watched by people, which seemed a core consideration for at least one local I overheard on my second visit, back for her fourth sitting that week.
La Buvette is that kind of place, in tune with the ebbs and flows of Challis Avenue, in thrall to the lived-in quality of Fratelli Paradiso just over the street, inspired by the enfant terrible energy of the now-shuttered Bistrot 916 that was basically next door . But where Bistrot 916 had a streak of subversion La Buvette is more classical, even if both of them are singing from the same songbook.
That songbook is a love for Paris and the core tenets of its restaurants: good wine, classic technique and an air of cultivated insouciance that makes you feel like a regular even if it’s your first time. Thing is, if it is your first time, odds are it won’t be your last.
The Goodies Hospitality group – aka Morgan McGlone and Nathan and Sali Sasi – has made a habit of opening restaurants that are all too easy to play on repeat, fromLa Buvette, a reinvention of the institution that served the neighbourhood on the same site for 25 years, has that same knack. This week, sprawl on the street, pop a crackling gougere filled with comte custard, drag up the dregs of the molten cafe de Paris butter saucing the snails with A.P Bakery baguette smeared with hand-moulded Beurre de Baratte D’Isigny.
The following week, perch at the counter and start with a tarte a la Tetsuya, a nod to the lauded Japanese chef’s pioneering pairing of raw tuna and goat’s curd, here finished with a glorious anchovy dressing. Next, watch the chefs slip a fish weight on top of coral trout as its skin crisps in the pan, then admire the eight pert cylinders of impossibly light gnocchi a la Parisienne, made with choux pastry instead of potato, protruding from a pool of porcini cream.
Could it use more mushroom depth? Yes. But you’ll still want more bread to soak it up. Part of what has made The Goodies so successful in such a short amount of time is a preternatural ability to distil things down to the fundamentals: everything is designed with one eye on the classics, another on trends and a third eye on what’s going to spark everyone’s interest.
The steak au poivre – blush-red wagyu striploin, juicy as you’d like – manages to tick all three, but it’s the depth and bite in the Kampot peppercorn sauce that really sells it. Fries are finished with duck fat-crisped tarragon. Salade is finished with a Neil Perry-esque palm-sugar vinaigrette. Pair both with the steak, or spark interest with the duck-neck sausage, sweet and supple, all the way up to the head.
Where to go from here? Perhaps follow the lead of the cartoon goose dunking its beak into champagne on the carte des vins, a French-led foldout doing classic, trendy and interesting in equal measure, supplemented by a short glass and carafe section. Ask somm Leo Imbert and he might steer you towards a chilled Beaujolais-Villages to carry you through this steamy spring.
It’s all thoroughly likeable, even if there’s little relief from all the cheese, flesh and butter. Want some vegetables? There’s plenty of parsley in the jambon persille, a pretty jellied ham-hock terrine plated with proper mustard and cornichons. But apart from the salade, that’s pretty much it.
Even the desserts look like animals or their progeny, from the swan fashioned from choux pastry with wings of white chocolate piped full of coffee and chocolate cream, to the tiny dotted Maison Balzac egg cups filled with creme caramel, two scoops of bittersweet whimsy. That doesn’t make them any less appealing, though. Au contraire. Crack open the cream.
Pick up the Pernod. Is trad-French cooking back? This is your cue to book La Buvette and find out. No, Scrap that.
Just wait outside for a table until you’re given the nod. : A fun French-led list, heavy on chardonnay and pinot noir, with carafes, fancy stuff by Coravin, Orangina and $11 Suze and tonics Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the
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