Bistro Grenier

Bistro Grenier is a sexy French bistro suspended in one of Newtown’s best wine bars, run by the group that gave us Pleasure Club. Its motto? Les cingles sont les bienvenus – “the freaks are welcome”.

The restaurant’s menu offers simple, honest French fare with a few twists. Take the boudin noir (a type of French blood sausage) made with confit onion, secret five-spice blend, blood and smoked pork jowl. Pureed apples add sweetness, and a creamy cloud of mashed potato rounds it out.

Meanwhile, Bistro Grenier’s version of a pisaladierre (savoury French tart) delivers Cantabrian anchovies, confit onion and black olives on a slice of buttery buckwheat puff pastry. A bavette steak is grilled on a hibachi and glazed with a soy and mirin sauce not dissimilar to what’s used for yakitori – if that sauce was also infused with brown butter, rosemary and thyme. The flavour-packed beef comes with triple-fried chippies and a non-creamy iteration of a pepper sauce.

Claiming “no room” for dessert? Good luck. There’s pouding chomeur – or “poor man’s pudding” – a baked-to-order self-saucing maple-syrup pudding that nods to head chef Jesse Warkentin’s Canadian heritage, and a dark chocolate sorbet with Armagnac-soaked prunes.

While the food menu plays with classics, the wine list is unapologetically French – with some local wines and “bits and pieces from across Europe and beyond” for good measure. Expect vintage and rare drops exclusive to the new mezzanine bistro – plus the anise-flavoured Ricard Pastis served tableside in the OG jugs for a bit of pre-dinner theatre