With an unassuming shopfront on the side of Pacific Highway, it is easy to overlook Brasserie L’Entrecote. It has a lovely homey French bistro vibe, bustling with waiters and diners. We stopped by for a birthday event with six people and were lucky enough to sample a wide variety of their menu.

Location: 1047 Pacific Highway, Pymble 2073, NSW
Price: $638 for 6 people including wine
Website: https://lentrecotesydney.com.au/brasserie/

First up on their entrée menu we ordered the soufflé gratine, which had notes of blue cheese. This was surprisingly delicious (if you don’t mind blue cheese) as it wasn’t overly strong or overpowering. It had a rather subtle blue cheese and cream melt with walnuts on top of a warm soft soufflé. Highly recommend trying this!

La Saint Jacques was a light seared scallop dish topped with foie gras mousse, onion jam on top of a puff pastry disc base. Delicious and well balanced, one of my favourite scallop starters in a while. The cold mousse did mean the seared scallops were quickly cooled down, so eat this one fast.

The next set of entrees we ordered was the salmon gravlax and the crab thermidor. The former was a light smoked salmon starter, topped with a nice cream and a light oil. This was fresh and light, but personally I would have preferred fresh/ceviche style vs the smoked salmon. Still a lovely dish. 

The crab thermidor was a rich, umami packed dish in a thick almost gravy-like lobster sauce. Delicious if you love seafood but I found it quite salty and overpowering. Perhaps order the sourdough baguette to accompany this dish and soak up the delicious jus, but on its own was quite salty.

Finally, to round out the entrees we ordered two very classic French dishes, the wagyu tartare and the French onion soup. The tartare came unmixed, so you can balance the red onion, herbs and other condiments to your liking. I wish they served larger, more substantive chips with the wagyu as the fries were too few and thin to be a proper vehicle for the wagyu. The French onion soup was delicious, cheesy and nicely salted. Overall both dishes were good but nothing you can’t experience at another restaurant.

For mains we couldn’t look past the steaks, ordering both the grilled striploin and the grilled sirloin. The striploin came on the bone and was fattier than the sirloin. Both cooked beautifully and served with the same ‘secret sauce’ and served with fries and a walnut salad. The walnut salad (not pictured) had a nice dousing of balsalmic vinegar and olive oil. Fries were nicely salted and both sides were perfect pairings to the steak.

Next up were the two duck dishes, la canard a l’orange and le margret, which were a confit duck leg in an apple puree and orange sauce and a grilled duck breast roasted in duck fat. Out of these two dishes, the duck breast was the favourite of the night. Perfectly grilled and fatty. The confit duck leg felt too overcooked and sweet, combined with the mash potato and sautéed spinach underneath meant a lot of the flavor was lost. I’d recommend sticking to the duck breast.

The final main we ordered was the special dish of the night, the French duck cottage pie with cream mash and potato. This was also very rich and delicious, covered in cheese, but I didn’t really taste the duck flavors in the pie. It is quite a rich dish as well so recommend sharing this one around the create some balance in the meal.

For dessert we ordered the tarte tatin and the raspberry soufflé. The tarte tatin was too sweet for my liking and overly indulgent. The raspberry soufflé was the better of the two desserts and well balanced. As a birthday treat, they sent across a profiterole with some chocolate and almond.

Melissa – 4/5, some solid French dishes on the menu here aside from some misses. I can see myself returning (perhaps to the branch in the city) to try some more of their menu. 

Overall, a nice neighborhood French bistro with some nicely executed classic dishes. Price wise it doesn’t totally break the bank and had some really nice gems (cheese soufflé and scallop starters) backed by some solid mains.