Bistrot Bisou

Luke Mangan is known in Sydney for his standard-setting hotel restaurants Glass Brasserie and Luke’s Kitchen. The chef (who trained under Michel Roux at the UK’s three-Michelin-starred The Waterside Inn in the 1990s) is also behind Bistrot Bisou, a French restaurant in Hotel Indigo on Flinders Lane.

Located on the ground floor of the Helmut Newton-inspired hotel, the 96-seat relaxed dining room has Parisian elegance thanks to biscuit-coloured banquettes, ivory-coloured tiling and gold pendant lighting. The open kitchen runs the length of the dining room and has a woodfired parrilla grill that emits a fiery glow and has a European countryside feel.

The menu showcases Mangan’s favourite French dishes. There’s a dry-aged rib eye on the bone and bavette steak frites, and spatchcock roasted over ironbark coals served with a champagne and tarragon sauce. New Zealand Ora King salmon is smoked in-house and comes with crème fraîche, egg dressing and toast. There is also classic gruyere soufflé, steak tartare and chicken liver parfait.

Desserts are fairly true to tradition with vanilla crème brûlée – floating islands made with raspberry sorbet, poached meringue and crème anglaise – and both individual- and share-sized tarte tatin made with apples soaked in Calvados brandy.

The extensive, mostly French-inspired, cocktail list has eight Martinis. There is also Bistrot Bisou’s signature cocktail, Tomber dans les Pommes – meaning “to faint” in French – made with Plantation 3 Stars white rum, Pierre Ferrand dry curacao, Pineau des Charentes, Dubonnet and green apple. Taittinger champagne is served alongside a selection of French wines from Beaujolais, the Loire Valley and Burgundy, as well as Victorian drops from Mornington Peninsula, Heywood and the Yarra Valley.