Bistro Guillaume is the new, more casual offering from Guillaume Brahimi, everyone’s favourite Frenchie. It’s open for breakfast and lunch six days a week, and dinner on Saturday nights. From October onwards, dinner will be available six nights a week. The menu is traditional French bistro fare, like steak tartare and classic cheese soufflés, but with a bit of a twist. The soufflé for example can be made giant for groups of four, so you can all dig in together, and there’s a toastie on the bar menu with our name on it: Iggy’s sourdough – “the best bread in Australia,” Brahimi tells us – stuffed with Holy Goat cheese, and served with chips and mixed leaves. WANT.
It’s a beautiful, blue and black toned space designed by Blainey North, who is more known for her hotel and private dwelling work than anything else – this is her first restaurant design. There’s a private dining room lined with walls of wine that looks like the setting for a meeting of the Shark Tankers. And it’s all within the foyer of the Suncorp skyscraper, handily just by Wynyard station.
And speaking of handy, there’s a pâtisserie inset into the space, for takeaway or sit-in. We got the first taste of all the delicious cakes on offer, so read all about that (ridiculously fun) experience here. But the thing we’re losing our mind over is this: they’re doing Iggy’s sourdough. Not sure why this is exciting? Until now, we’ve only been able to get the bread – Sydney’s best, we’d wager – from the bakery itself in Bronte, and for many of us that is a trek and a half. Now it’s right by the station, we need never eat substandard sourdough again.
Guillaume has brought the mountain to us.