What’s your idea of the perfect date restaurant? As in, a swipe-right first date.

Maybe it’s keenly priced Chinese plates at Happy Boy. Or Thai at Same Same or Italian at Bianca. Or approachable Greek at Greca or innovative Mexican at Baja. All these restaurants are fast-paced, interesting and big on vibe.

But French? Your options are a little more limited. Make no mistake: some of Brisbane’s best restaurants are French – RDA, Montrachet and C’est Bon among them. But if French is the food of love, in Brisbane it’s typically angled more towards occasions and anniversaries.

But that’s beginning to change. French has made a massive comeback in Australia’s dining scene over the past decade, and with the rebirth has come a rethink. There’s L’Hotel Gitan, Bar Margaux and Smith St Bistrot in Melbourne, and Porcine and the reworked Monopole in Sydney.

In Brisbane, brothers Cameron and Jordan Votan opened the stripped-back Petite earlier this year, with a clever menu that encourages exploration of both food and wine.

Now comes Pompette, the second opening at Queen’s Wharf for restaurateur Michael Tassis in as many weeks (after Dark Shepherd).

“I’ve always wanted to do a French restaurant,” says Tassis, who trained as a chef. “When you do your apprenticeship, it’s one of the mother cuisines. Everything you do with [Western] cooking comes from those French foundations.

“I’ve watched that comeback, and I wanted an opportunity to launch a really spectacular French restaurant in this location.”

The location is hard to argue with. Pompette might be one of the last restaurants to open on Queen’s Wharf’s fourth-level dining terrace but it’s scored the prime spot right next to the Neville Bonner pedestrian bridge and an al fresco dining area that looks up the river towards the CBD.

Tassis’ approach makes sense then. Pompette is designed to be flexible: you can go large with a group – it has three private dining rooms with just that in mind – or you can simply drop in for champagne and oysters on the daybeds outside.

“French food makes people feel special, but the name Pompette means ‘slightly drunk’ and we want the venue to live up to that name,” Tassis says. “You come in, have fun and walk out a little tipsy.”

Tassis Group’s go-to designer company Clui hasn’t so much created a French restaurant, but a restaurant with flashes of French inspiration. There’s fluted glass and timber-edged tables and mosaic-tile flooring and a lengthy marble comptoir, but the restaurant is very much an open-air affair and a series of interlocking banquettes have been cut low to capture a sense of intimacy without losing the buzz. It’s clever stuff.

For food, chef Jean Luc Morcellet is cooking a bunch of classics given a modern twist.

For entrees, French go-tos such as escargot and steak tartare are lined up alongside a sand crab salad with espelette mayonnaise and a saffron rouille, scallops with blue cheese and creamed quinoa, and lightly cured kingfish with an apple fennel salad and honey mustard dressing.

On the mains menu there’s toothfish with a bouillabaisse sauce and fennel fondue, gnocchi a la Parisienne with wild mushrooms, comte and parmesan crisp, a wagyu beef burger with foie gras, tomato, fries and a blue-cheese dipping sauce, and a five-score wagyu sirloin steak frites with cafe de Paris butter.

There are also larger plates to share such as a nine-score wagyu cote de boeuf served with two sides of your choice, live rock lobster thermidor, a 400-gram eye fillet bouef filet en croute, and a half or full duck a l’orange.

For those dropping through, there are snacks such as foie gras with fig jam and brioche, and a raw beef tartelette with sour cream and caviar; oysters served either natural or mornay; and a caviar menu served with blinis, cultured cream and lemon.

For drinks there’s a lengthy, French-focused wine list that includes 40 champagnes and close to 40 wines by the glass. There are also signature cocktails alongside a bunch of spritzes and featured classics.

“The principles with this restaurant are the same as any other,” Tassis says. “You make sure you’re doing good food and providing excellent service.

“But I think that becomes particularly important with French. We might be doing an evolution with Pompette but at a certain point, you need to get old-school and make sure the fundamentals are right.”

Open daily 11am-late

The Terrace, Level 4, Queen’s Wharf

pompette.com.au