Paris matched

It’s a team that has been involved with some of Sydney’s most seminal restaurants in recent years. And now the trio of Daniel Pepperell, Michael Clift and Andy Tyson has opened a neighbourhood French bistro in Potts Point.

Bistrot 916 has launched in the former Fish Shop site on Challis Ave that was most recently filled by the Lotus restaurant pop up. The venue, beside the ever-popular Fratelli Paradiso, offers an updated Sydney take on a Parisian bistro.

Pepperell and Tyson were most notably at another Sydney French-style bistro, the brilliant, subterranean Hubert in the CBD, while Clift has been at Rockpool Dining Group.

According to the team, Bistrot 916 will “draw inspiration from the new wave of Parisian bistros” with a “warm, moody and pared-back dining room that has a dark, embracing atmosphere for lingering over bottles of Chablis, Beaujolais, and plates of oysters and lobster frites”.

“We’re very excited to be in Potts Point,” says Tyson, who was group sommelier and restaurant manager for the Swillhouse Group behind Hubert and its sister venue, Surry Hills’ Alberto’s Lounge. “I got to know the area pretty well while working previously at [the original] Monopole.”

The menu will be seafood focused and deferential to French bistro classics.

“There’ll be shucked chilled oysters, raw shellfish served on ice, steak au poivre and duck frites,” says Pepperell, who was head chef at Hubert and before that at Paddington’s 10 William St. “As well as some less familiar dishes, like boudin noir spring rolls, or handmade pasta dressed in garlic and snails.”

The wine list steers towards the younger generation of French producers, with a big selection of grower Champagnes, white Burgundy and Châteauneuf-du-Pape regions, as well as new players in Australian wine.

The defection of Pepperell and Tyson is a big loss to the Swillhouse group, but a huge win for the inner-east. Clift has been at Rockpool Dining Group after a global career in England (at the development kitchen for The Fat Duck) and Turkey (as executive chef of the Kempinski Hotel, Bodrum).

Bistrot 916

22 Challis Ave, Potts Point

bistrot916.com