Bowral restaurants do well with the twice-a-year crowd. This bistro impresses everyone

The first time I met my wife’s late grandmother, she was in head-to-toe leopard print, camouflaged against a leopard-print pouffe. Along with her obvious sense of style, she exhibited a mild case of narcolepsy, and had come to be known affectionately as Noddy. When I met her, Noddy lived in Bowral, having retired to the Highlands after spending most of her married life on a sheep farm.

Visiting meant strolls in the garden, homemade mayonnaise (main ingredient: condensed milk) and the heaters cranked to combat the frost. If we had lunch out, it might have been a sandwich at the Bradman Museum cafe. And while occasionally she’d slip us a fifty and insist we go to the fanciest Italian in town, she was a lamb chops and chutney, CWA kind of grandma.

Bowral? It’s a CWA kind of town. A town of antiques, award-winning pastries and country style. What it isn’t, is a restaurant town.

These sensibilities have typically made the Highlands a tough market. Two-hatted Biota never had an issue attracting weekenders, and like Paste in Mittagong and Eschalot in Berrima, it did well with the twice-a-year crowd. But what about something that balances the needs of locals, caters to visitors, then keeps enough up its sleeve for the new wave of residents who quit the city post-COVID?

The coming Three Blue Ducks Burradoo and revamped restaurant at Milton Park are promising, but for now, meet Lucette Bistro, launched in November in Bowral’s High Street shopping complex.

A bistro-brasserie in true Parisian style, it’s cleverly tooled to suit many speeds: viennoiserie and omelettes in the morning, baguettes at lunch, steak frites for dejeuner and dîner.

Start with steak and of the three to four cuts listed, the wagyu sirloin offers the most balance between flavour and chew, the fat nicely caramelised, the flesh blushing. Up the pepper in the au poivre, check the seasoning on the French fries and this alone would satisfy a large tranche of the population. But Lucette does so much more that it’s suddenly become the Highlands’ hottest opening.

Look around. See the bentwood chairs, the pleated sconces throwing soft light on mustard banquettes and tinted glass brickwork. Admire the folds of the cafe curtains, the geometry in the floor tiles.

It’s a Larissa Leigh Interiors fit, the studio behind Postino Osteria and Cafe Cressida, and as swish as it is, it’s also very functional. The inside flows onto a terrace, which along with breezy counter seating is the spot to get around the impressive aperitif list – who else serves Rinquinquin or Suze in the Highlands, anyway?

Too often French restaurants outside of France string up the tricoleur and flick on the French Cafe Mix, but Lucette is more classic than caricature, and even though there are moules frites and French onion soup on the carte, it rarely threatens to fall into cliche.

Lucette might just be the little light the Highlands has been waiting for.

Owners Julien and Romy Besnard have signed Parisian Guillaume Dubois to lead the kitchen, who was head chef at two-hatted Monopole during its impressive French period. And Dubois wears his fine-dining credentials proudly. The peppercorn sauce? Infused with shio kombu and thickened with xanthan gum. Chicken-liver parfait? Sweet and subtle due to the way the kitchen soaks the livers in milk for three days. The cubes of soft-set rosé jelly on top might be a riff on a Monopole move, but why mess with a good thing?

There are some questionable choices (ahem, loaded croissants), but then the Besnards balance classic and novel over the road at Franquette Creperie well enough, so maybe they just know the market.

On the full menu, beef tartare dressed in brown butter mayonnaise feels thoroughly modern while keeping the garnishes traditional. The soup? Served properly scalding in a lion’s-head tureen, its flavour built on brown beef stock and deeply caramelised onions. I wouldn’t call the toasts piped with cheese custard an improvement, but I wouldn’t call them bad either.

Confit salmon, meanwhile, is almost a riff on the legendary Troisgros dish, the punch here coming from a pickle-like green cucumber sauce. But why choose farmed Tasmanian salmon in this day and age? I would, however, still tell you to order the tableside chocolate mousse flecked with Guerande salt, even if the feuilletine and praline topping seems to lose its crunch throughout the night.

But for every small pitfall, there’s another small thing lending Lucette its charm. Like shipping par-baked baguettes from Paris then finishing them on-site, the same way plenty of boulangeries do in France because they taste right.

Or service that’s just the right amount of French matter-of-fact: “How’s the 2023 auxerrois?” you ask. “It’s good!” And you know? It is.

At the next table, a grey-haired couple are enjoying a date. Opposite, two brothers are taking their parents out for dinner. On the banquette, some ex-Sydneysiders are sipping digestifs, while staff quietly set places for breakfast. It’s early days, but Lucette might just be the little light the Highlands has been waiting for.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.