Meal #54: France

French cuisine is considered to be one of the world's most refined and elegant styles of cooking. Unfortunately the male members of our “Cuisine Team” are rarely, if ever, refined or elegant. Thankfully the gracious airs of our female companions helped to cover this fact up as we ventured into the world of fine French dining.

Bistro Vite
Ground floor 3C
Southgate Complex
Southbank

The design and lay-out of Bistro Vite is inspired by traditional Parisian cafés, and its location, on the promenade terrace of Southgate, is the perfect setting – reminiscent of the cafés that line the Seine.

The menu offers the adventurous diner all the ‘interesting’ dishes you would expect from a French restaurant; including snails (escargot), ox check, lamb brain, and twice cooked pork belly. However, our fancy flock of French food fanciers, Helen, Caroline, Rami, Paul, Deb and Sai, were a bit more conservative with their meal choices, although we couldn’t go to a French restaurant without trying the snails!

Entrées:

Escargot, stuffed & baked in button mushrooms, with a lavender & champagne butter sauce.

Crispy quail with wild roquette leaves dressed with stringy bark honey & saffron pear chutney.

Mains:

Wagyu steak with frites (French fries) and Café Paris sauce

Vegetarian Tasting Plate consisting of goats cheese panna cotta with pickled beetroot, shallot tarte tartin & lavender garlic mushrooms.

Pan fried gnocchi, with baby beets, persian fetta & tarragon dressing.

Flathead tails and frites (French fries), with tarter sauce and lemon

The Meal:

When the only complaint you can come up with about a restaurant is that the waiter’s French accent was too strong, you know you’ve hit a winner!


The escargot was received favourably. The snails were served inside the mushrooms – removing and possibility of a messy shell removal.

Although the quail was designed as an entrée, it was ordered as a main. This was a wise move as this delicious dish was certainly big enough.

The Wagyu steak was tender and juicy. Although questions were raised about whether it was really a Wagyu steak, or an inferior variety – however, when the steak is the size of a dinner plate and it is served with half a kilogram of French fries, who’s really going to complain?

Although the vegetarian tasting plate appeared to have servings that appeared a bit small for the price, all three dishes were highly praised, especially the mushrooms.

The gnocchi dish was one of the highlights of the meal with the dressing highlighting the flavours of all the other ingredients.

Finally, the French fish ‘n chips was also greatly enjoyed; the tasty batter and tender fish lifting high above what you’d normal get from your corner shop.

Overall:

Although Bistro Vite isn’t cheap (the average main being over $20) it is significantly better priced than most French restaurants. Nevertheless, the food was great and its Parisian ambience and wonderful setting, near the shores of the Yarra River along Southgate’s promenade terrace, makes this restaurant an ideal place to eat – especially if you plan to go to a play or concert in the nearby Arts Complex.