‘Outstanding value’: A two-course dinner and a show (with a bit of skin on show) for $69

Get ready for a different kind of dinner bell.

Maybe you’ve made your way to the bottom of a Blushing Violet cocktail, a shaken concoction with wormwood gin and violet liqueur. Perhaps you’re spreading duck terrine on baguette. Surely, you’re looking delightful on a black velvet banquette, the onyx sparkle of the bar and golden shimmer of the chandeliers lending an allure that’s a little extra in a suburb best known for its golf.

Ding-a-ling-ling, the music is turned up and two feathered dancers prance into the restaurant, a rush of sequins, red lips and hi-de-ho jazz for a one-song burlesque performance, all the way from fully frocked to G-string and nipple tassels. The room buzzes as they shimmy away. A moment later, the prawns arrive, nestled in a creamy herb sauce, then the eye fillet, cooked, as requested, to a perfect medium-rare with a puck of Cafe de Paris butter lolling lusciously atop.

The mood is risque but not raunchy, with the dancers playing as much to the ladies as the lads in the audience which, on this night, is a happy mixture of dressed-up mums, double dates, solo women and couples. On a recent weekend visit, there were customers from as far afield as the US and Singapore, but the place is also an overture to bayside locals: you don’t need to trek to the CBD for a Big Night Out.

There’s definitely a bit of skin on show (although no more than you see in your local dog park or on iview). I work through my feminist uncertainties with Jamie Bucirde, an occasional burlesque performer at Le Bar who’s also the Good Food Guide’s inaugural, cultural-change champion, and a campaigner against sexual assault.

“Burlesque is rebellious, cheeky and beautifully refined,” she tells me. “It reclaims public space and our bodies, too. The first burlesque dancers danced when women couldn’t vote or be seen or heard, let alone show any skin.”

I turn to gaze at the chocolate mousse that’s just arrived; laced with Cointreau and piped with whipped cream, it’s an exemplar of the French-ish food here. The food is good rather than amazing, but the $69 ($55 vegan), two-course set menu for burlesque nights is outstanding value because it includes the show.

The drinks offering is excellent, with swank cocktails leaning into Prohibition-era New York and Parisian bohemia. I love the theatrical Van Gogh, which sees a tabletop fountain dripping chilled water onto a flaming sugar cube resting over a glass of absinthe.

Manager Dina Dames and barman Jai Singh run the unique, five-year-old venue with fond attention. Both were also involved with Lobster Cave next door, which closed last October after 38 years of claw-cracking.

Hopefully, Le Bar has a glittering future because experiential dining is one of the biggest trends in hospitality. People want to eat, of course, but they often hanker for something more to make the occasion stand out. Le Bar delivers: it’s fun and entertaining. Long may the tassels twirl.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine.

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

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