Review: Frederic in Cremorne offers timeless French bistro classics
It wasn’t even a real suburb until recently, but this inner Melbourne pocket has gone from “where?” to “whoa!” — and a new bistro is serving timeless classics to the digital natives who work and live here.
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This wasn’t even a real suburb, what, 10 years ago?
Known for not much more than sprawling warehouses and tiny worker’s cottages and the alleys drunk lads wee’d in after being kicked out of The Depot, Cremorne’s gone from “where?” to “whoa!”
Filled with start-ups and design agencies and co-working spaces for super cool creatives, it’s now a hub of terrifyingly accomplished
Thirty-year-olds and impeccably turned out women being fabulous and busy and fabulously busy. Thor even works here.
Well, not the Byron Bay beefcake himself but his ab-making app and those who make it ‘appen who are moving into a turn-of-the-century factory transformed into a strikingly modern multi-level office building that has, in the way of all new developments, hospitality tenants.
I don’t usually rush into a new place like a hysterical teenager throwing my knickers at David Cassidy but, given we’re in early adopter heartland, here I am pretending to blend in with the cool kids just a day after the Reymond siblings (Antoine, Edouard, Nathalie) threw open the doors to Frederic.
Tonight I’m at Fred, the bar part of the equation that adjoins the French-ish bistro next door, and, apart from a couple of blokes also perched at the bar, the place is packed with the better sex debriefing over $14 glasses of happy hour Laurent Perrier and $2 oysters. It’s buzzing.
The house beer (brewed by Coopers, $8 schooner) is sold to me as “a smashable lager” and so it is.
It’s perfect for sunny afternoons out front sitting on the log stools that surround marble-topped tables, an eclectic design statement today we’ll all likely be copying for our courtyards come 2021.
Inside, charms are more timeless. This is the third venue for the trio which has followed in their famous father’s footsteps, and though Jacques Reymond’s fingerprints seem lighter here than at Bistro Gitan or L’Hotel Gitan, his presence is felt through framed mementos of his career on the wall.
Making the most of all the coffee meetings and working breakfasts and catch-up drinks it takes to get a start-up started, Fred’s opens early for croissants, then serves seafood, salads and steak long into the night.
The house pickled “conservas” is seafood snacking done with supreme class.
Served with a heap of olive oil-drizzled charred crostini, there are good little mussels ($6), textural and tender octopus ($8), and exceptional sardines, fat beauties splayed across the plate, each dotted with a nicely spiced tomato-onion sauce ($8).
I’m no fan of serving croque monsieur on baguette — too crunchy, too hurty — but I do like the addition of pickled onion and a saucisson to the usual ham and cheese here ($14).
With a glass of Fred’s pinot gris — made by Mornington’s Crittenden from Alpine valley grapes, $10 — I’m sure for many that’ll be cheat day lunch sorted.
Much better, a perfectly executed risotto of fleshy broad beans and vibrant, plump peas with firm bite, the rice as green as my envy of Thor’s abs is rich, minty and decadently cheesy ($26).
It’s exceptional and offered at both the bar and Frederic, where it’s also part of the excellent value two-course lunch that’s just $40 with a glass of Coombe Estate wine.
In fact, the whole package is a value-first proposition.
Take the steak frites. For $28, you get 250g of respectfully treated, very good Gippsland beef that’s beautifully cooked, well-rested and seasoned.
A little salad, some punchy horseradish-spiked mustard and while the fries could do with a little more crunch and fluff, it’s a plate a damn sight better than you’d be served in many pubs for the same price or more.
The pan-European wine list still shows signs of cultural cringe that’s in the Reymonds’ DNA, but it’s an approachable collection of interest with an eclectic by-the-glass selection around $15.
Chefs often put so much love into the front of the menu they seem to run out of puff by the time it gets to mains.
So it is at Frederic. For while the toasted-in-chicken fat housemade brioche served with a mild tarama mainlines a dopamine hit ($4 each), plates that follow disappoint.
THE TASTY FOOD TRENDS SWEEPING VICTORIA
THE FOOD HAVEN FROM MELBOURNE’S BUSTLE
DISHES BUSIER THAN BOURKE ST, AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY
Housemade spaghetti with confit chicken, tarragon, gruyere and a chicken skin crumb reads well but tastes like the sharehouse creamy chicken I cooked when I first moved out of home, the big chunks of dry chicken lost in a huge tangle of pasta ($35), while clever fish bacon and lovely roasted swede couldn’t salvage the pasty, overcooked snapper ($36).
But no faulting the perfectly made mini martini (or is that martiny? $12) to start or the excellent coffee to end ($4), and the style with which the restaurant has been realised.
In this digital world, Frederic offers analog pleasures and that should make it timeless.
FREDERIC
9-11 Cremorne St, Cremorne
9089 7224
Score: 14/20
Open: Mon-Fri lunch, Mon-Sat dinner (Frederic); Mon-Fri from 7am, Sat from 3pm (Fred)
Go-to dish: Broad bean and pea risotto
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