France-Soir

I love this place. The busyness of the place, waiters that speak French even though I don’t understand a word of it, it’s the reason my partner come back here all the time.
Sure, it may be cramped, by your opinion, but it’s all part of the charm. If you’ve been to France, this place will bring it home. Good hearty French cooking to fill your soul.

The food here would have been worth 4 stars but I am only giving it 3.5 due to the too cramped seating area. Sure the busyness and crowd only attests to how popular this place but I would like to enjoy my dining experience instead of having to avoid knocking into people the whole evening.
That said, food was unpretentious and definitely well prepared for this French Bistro. Worth checking out the specials of the day which the waiters will read out.

France Soir? Franc No! No No No!
Made a booking for 9pm, the earliest available, so was already quite hungry by the time we arrived. There was already no standing room when we got there, and nobody to ask about our table. When we finally got to speak to someone, he promised the table would be ready in 10 minutes. We went a few doors up for a quick drink, simply because there was literally nowhere to stand in there.
We came back in time, but got the same treatment. Lots of others were crowding in, many with bookings much earlier than ours. Not looking good! By the time we’d spent an hour getting pushed around by their grumpy staff, it was time to leave, and try to find somewhere else to eat at 10pm. They just shrugged — who cares, when all your tables are full?
If you’re looking for the perfect restaurant to *kill* a romantic night out, this is it. They clearly overbook, more interested in their bottom line than in taking care of their customers. A true bunch of pricks.

One of the top French Bistros in Australia.
The best wine list I have seen in any Australian restaurant.
There is no pretentiousness here, real French Bistro, French waiters that treat waiting tables like the professional job it should be.
The food is real, and the menu a classic! If you are looking for dollops of foams and fancy coulis dotted in a large white plate like a castaway in a vast ocean, this is not your place.
My favourite, if I am in Melbourne for a day or a month, it always is first on my list of places for lunch or dinner.
Be sure to book a table, it’s cosy and tight and always full.

My favorite steak tartare in town. Kitchen open very late. No excuse to not have amazing food late at night. Love this place

As consistently awesome as last time, probably the best restaurant in melb? love the BYO for such a high calibre restaurant too.

Went here following my graduation ceremony. Arrived at 8:30 for our 9pm booking and they managed to fit us in.
The tables are a little squishy but the atmosphere very Parisian. The food was delicious with authentic French flavours. Shared entrees of lambs brains with butter and capers which were lightly battered and melted in your mouth. The leek tart was also light and fluffy. For mains duck à l’orange which was a very generous portion and pink succulent meat.
What let down the whole experience was the service. It seemed our waiter was more interested in having a drink at the bar then serving us our food. To accompany our mains we ordered salad and no chips. What arrived was chips and no salad we tried to get the waiter’s attention but had to give up. There was a salad on the bar counter which remained there for the rest of our meal. Mistake maybe but there was no apology.
We were keen to have desert given that it was a special occasion but it took so long for the waiters to bring us a menu and then almost 20 minutes and they still hadn’t taken our desert order so we decided to give it a miss.
Would I go here again? Whilst the food was delicious I think that there are plenty of French restaurants in Melbourne where you can get that plus great service which would make the whole experience far more enjoyable. Definitely won’t be heading back in a hurry.

This Toorak Road French restaurant is located just down from the corner of Punt Road and next door to the French Fantasies patisserie. It offers the full range of iconic French dishes — escargot, coquilles St Jacques, duck l’orange, boeuf bourguignon — and does them very well.
It’s what you’d expect from a French restaurant in Toorak — white linen table cloths, a long mirror running along one wall with the daily specials written in white crayon, and real French waiters (or at least waiters who can produce more than a passable version of a French accent).
I started with a Rickard and a French beer called Mont Blanc la Blonde and the charcuterie plate, which included prosciutto, a couple of varieties of salami and a little slab of terrine — the Spanish prosciutto was particularly good.
I was in a grazing mood so I opted for a couple of entrees rather than a main. First up was the escargot. Really, you can’t go wrong with snails can you? Exactly what I expected, served in individual pots with garlic butter. Tasty, succulent and delicious.
This was followed by the Langoustines grilles a la citronella — prawns grilled with lemongrass. Very tasty and the light lemongrass sauce complemented the prawn meat really well.
France Soir is good, solid French cuisine with no surprises. Entrees range between $ 15 — 25 and mains in the $ 30 — $ 40 price bracket.

We ordered the grilled scampi with lemongrass for our entrée; the 550g steak and the veal for our mains; and the wilted spinach and a bowl of fries as sides. The scampi and steak were delicious but the veal tasted like burnt chicken. Also, I ordered a glass of pinot gris and what they brought me tasted like sauv blanc. The spinach and fries were OK in so far as they tasted like what they purported to be.

Everything about this place exceeded my expectations. The food, the wine selection, the waiters, the atmosphere. My best experience of French food in Melbourne. What more can I say. It was a special occasion and they provided the excuse to enjoy the extravagance. I am saving up to go back soon.

Located in South Yarra on Toorak Road, France Soir is the place to go if you want to splash out on some yummy French food.
My GCSE French tells me that the name «France Soir» literally means France evening. And that’s pretty much what you have from the quintessentially French menu to the charming French wait staff.
The service was what you’d expect from a French restaurant in Saint-​Michel and the waiters certainly ensured you were enjoying yourselves. Our particular waiter decided to take the piss out of my English accent comprehensively and it later emerged he’d lived their for a long time and loved it (some people love the UK!).
The food was delicious and the wine list extensive. The steak with Bernaise sauce was cooked to perfection. This has to go down as one of the better dining experiences in Melbourne!

It was a special occasions — my birthday? His birthday? I don’t remember, but we wanted to go some place nice, some place French. We ended at France-​Soir, a French restaurant established since 1986 that serves authentic French cuisine.
On the menu are the usual French dishes: canard, steak tartare, oyster, escargot, crème brulee, crêpe. With an extensive, mainly French wine list, those looking for some quality old world wines are in luck, but be prepared to spend money on the bottle.
A small venue with little spaces between the tables, you will definitely get to know your neighbours. This does provide a cosy and warm atmosphere. With the majority, if not all, of the waiters French, you’re also getting an authentic experience.
My partner has never had escargot before, so we had to order them. I’m a fan of escargot. The escargots were so delicious — buttery and garlicky. Next, the steak tartare — done properly with quality beef. With steak and duck as our mains, I was a happy diner — juicy and pink meats.
Great experience, a bit expensive, but so worth it if you’re looking for some classic French cuisine.