France Soir Melbourne

Summary

France-Soir is one of the best French restaurants in Melbourne, and having been around for over 25 years, it is an institution in its own right. It serves excellent French cuisine, with its specialty being steak et frites (steak and fries). With mains like rabbit and duck cooked to perfection, and sauces that complimented the meat so well, we were savouring every morsel on our plate. Scrumptious food, combined with polite and attentive service makes France-Soir an excellent choice for dinner.

France Soir Melbourne

 

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Jean-Paul Prunetti’s France-Soir, located on Toorak Road in South Yarra, is an exceptional French restaurant in Melbourne that specialises in steak et frites (steak and chips). In fact, people come here for lunch (or dinner) regularly just to have their steak et frites. The restaurant has been around for over 25 years, and has become a French institution for Melbournians.

We chose to have dinner here to celebrate a special occassion – the first customer for my new business, Tom4Machinery.

 

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When you first walk in the door, you can see that, although the tables are packed in, you don’t feel like a sardine. France-Soir is a small French restaurant in Melbourne, however, they manage to pack in so many tables without it being too cramped. Every table was filled by the end of the evening, which shows that this restaurant is really popular with Melbournians.

Customer service was first class, especially the French-speaking waiting staff, who were quick, efficient, polite and well presented. We liked how they were able to juggle around the closely set tables without fault.

France-Soir reminds us of a Parisian bistro, bustling on a Friday night. Decor is classy with an art deco style about it.

 

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After looking through an extensive wine list and menu, we choose what we felt were our favourites.

First up, we were served complimentary bread, which in many places is just an afterthought. The bread was fresh, crusty, tasty and proved a great introduction for what was to come.

From the wine list, I chose a glass of French Grenache, which was excellent – rich, red and would taste great with cheese, chocolate and gamey meat. Shareen tried a glass of French Melon Blanc, which was fresh, aromatic and light. Both choices were recommended by our waiter, and they were excellent choices, as both were full of flavour.

 

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For our first starter, we chose mussels in white wine sauce, which is a classic French dish. France-Soir didn’t let us down with this dish.

The mussels were perfectly cooked, all nicely opened and were lightly coated with the white wine sauce. The mussels were fresh, well cleaned and chosen for their quality appearance and flavour. Many restaurants choose a strong overpowering sauce to try and mask the strong flavour of the mussels. At France-Soir, the chef made a subtle, delicate white wine sauce  that worked well with the flavour of the mussels and produced a fine finish to the dish.

 

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Our second starter was scallops, chorizo and wild mushrooms in butter sauce.

It was a lovely dish, with a subtle and delicate sauce. This is not exactly traditional French cuisine, but the mix of flavours – from the scallops, chorizo and mushrooms – was great. Perfectly cooked scallops on thinly sliced chorizo and mushrooms would have been great on its own, but the sauce added another dimension to the flavour. I would recommend this dish to any lover of Mediterranean cuisine.

 

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Our first main for the evening was duck l’orange (duck in orange sauce).

The duck pieces were cooked beautifully, and there were two different cuts served. The leg and thigh section was almost falling off the bone, and the flavour was strong and I really enjoyed this. The breast was cooked more softly and was almost rare, and Shareen loved how this was cooked.

The sauce was on another level of its own. It is so easy to make this sauce and have the citrus be too strong or too salty. This sauce was beautifully combined with subtle undertones of pepper.

 

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For the Rabbit du Joir, today was rabbit with blue cheese sauce.

Now, lets start with a confession – I generally avoid eating rabbit. Too many times it has been tough, overcooked, too gamey or just unappetising. Tonight, our rabbit was beautifully cooked, tender and tasty. The blue cheese sauce worked really well with the rabbit without overpowering it.

 

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We also ordered a plate of frites or french fries to go with our mains. These were hot, fresh, not oily, with a light sprinkle of salt. It was a nice accompaniment, and we picked at the fries while eating our main meals.

Unfortunately, we were too full to order dessert, as we would have loved to have continued this gastronomical affair at France-Soir.

We really enjoyed dining at France-Soir, so much so, we can’t wait to return and try out some of their other popular dishes. Credit to the staff of France-Soir for an excellent evening.

If you’re searching for French Restaurant Melbourne, this restaurant is one of the best in Melbourne.