First Look: The Frog Club Is a Lavish Late-Night Diner From the Gilson Crew

There are plenty of ways to approach dinner at The Frog Club. You could start with a $7 comté gougère topped with Wagyu bresaola and finish with a $32 cheeseburger. Or you could go all-in on a $280 plateau de fruits de mer before tackling a $380 côte de boeuf. The newly opened Windsor restaurant isn’t particularly interested in restraint.

The Frog Club is the first new restaurant in a decade from Gilson’s James McBride, developed over 18 months with business partner Marc Gurman. Where Gilson built its reputation on all-day neighbourhood dining, this is an altogether more nocturnal proposition: a late-night grill, bar and dining room serving until midnight seven nights a week. “It’s somewhere you can settle in,” McBride says. “Come before dinner, after dinner, make a night of it.”

Culinary director Angel Fernandez, formerly of Victor Churchill Group and Rockpool Group under Neil Perry, has gone unapologetically old-school. There’s caviar with traditional accompaniments; Sydney rock oysters served natural, Rockefeller or charentaise with merguez sausage; a prawn cocktail with Mary Rose sauce; gravlax; chicken liver parfait; and beef tartare with potato crisps and hollandaise.

Smaller snacks loosen the tie a little: clam and fontina empanadas, anchovy toast with fresh curd, crumpets with mussels escabeche and saffron butter, and a four-point veal sandwich with tuna mayonnaise and pickles. 

But “the real heartbeat is the wood grill”, McBride says. This is where much of the steak and seafood is cooked. The steaks range from a 280-gram Wagyu hanger to an 800-gram striploin on the bone, served with a choice of sauce béarnaise, diane and au poivre, chimichurri or café de Paris butter. Seafood gets similarly grand treatment: the lobster frites pairs half a lobster with sauce américaine and fries, while the whole fish changes with the day’s catch and comes with lemon beurre blanc, gribiche, meunière or green sauce.

Despite the more lavish touches, McBride doesn’t want Frog Club to become a rarefied spot reserved for birthdays and anniversaries. “You want it to be something that you crave – food that should be approachable and something you could eat two or three times a week,” he says. The dining room follows the same philosophy. “We want it to be a bit of a party every night.”

Designer Nathan Ruttner’s interiors certainly play along. White tablecloths sit against warm ochre walls and dark panelling, while an eclectic collection of framed photographs, illustrations and sculptural objects gives the rooms a collected rather than freshly installed feel.

Behind the bar, Matt Linklater continues the classic-with-a-wink approach in a cocktail program that includes theatrically thrown Martinis. Local house producer Prequel handles the soundtrack, moving through jazz, soul, boogie, disco and funk, as well as African and Brazilian rhythms.

For McBride, it’s ultimately about creating something recognisable without repeating what he’s done before. “It’s meant to be familiar and not challenging,” he says. “Somewhere you can dress up and have a special night.”

The Frog Club

163 Chapel Street, Windsor

(03) 9523 8144

Hours:

Daily 5pm–late 

thefrogclub.com.au

@thefrogclub_