The Challis Avenue venue from restaurateurs Nathan and Sali Sasi and business partner Morgan McGlone will join a wave of new and upcoming Gallic venues opening across the city.
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The former Challis Avenue home of Potts Point institution La Buvette will be born again as a Gallic venue, with the team behind hatted restaurants Bar Copains, Bessie’s and Vin-Cenzo’s opening a French wine bar at the site.
Restaurateurs Nathan and Sali Sasi and business partner Morgan McGlone have been on a golden run since kick-starting The Goodies Hospitality Group in 2022 with the opening of Bar Copains in Surry Hills.
Morgan McGlone (left) and Nathan Sasi at the former Chefs’ Warehouse site in Surry Hills.
When the one-time site of La Buvette became available, Sasi said it ticked a major box for the trio as a Sydney location with historic hospitality pedigree: in 2025 they opened Bessie’s in the former Surry Hills home of kitchen supply institution Chefs’ Warehouse, and transformed Darlinghurst’s Bar Vincent into Vin-Cenzo’s.
La Buvette was a 25-year staple at Challis Avenue when it closed in 2019, with the site used in subsequent years as extra space for a neighbouring Spanish eatery. “We’re 99 per cent sure we’re going to call it La Buvette,” Sasi said of the upcoming project.
And they’re all-in on French food, joining an uptick in new and upcoming Sydney venues from the airport to Double Bay pushing the cuisine. “Where Bar Copains is more [broadly] European, this will be more fixed French,” Sasi said. “Put it this way, you won’t see pasta.”
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What you will see is flounder meuniere, crumbed veal brains with Swiss chard, and oysters with house-made merguez sausage. Chefs Sasi and McGlone recently returned from a work trip to France, and are already in the kitchen testing goose rillettes and barbajuan with Swiss chard and goat’s curd for the July opening.
The original La Buvette site in 1998.Adam Pretty
The closure in November 2024 of the hatted Bistrot 916 at Challis Avenue created a gap on the strip for French. And the redevelopment of the building where Bistrot 916 traded will include a boutique hotel, which added to the appeal of the location, Sasi said. It’s also an established Potts Point eat street, with Fratelli Paradiso and La Buvette’s next-door neighbour, Fei Jai, both long thriving stalwarts of the strip.
The choice of the pint-sized La Buvette site might seem a curious move for the rapidly expanding hospitality group, but Sasi said it suited the concept. While the diminutive space will only have 10 seats inside, there’ll be plenty of outdoors seating. “We discovered at Bar Copains, people like sitting outside,” Sasi said. When it opens mid-year, the hope is it’ll add to the Potts Points Parisian street vibe as a venue for a quick drink and bite, with a menu that doesn’t tread on the toes of other French venues in the postcode.
One of those venues is Le Frerot, which opened last year on Challis Avenue in place of Catalan restaurant Parlar. Owner Andrew Becher said its all-day French menu has proved popular with locals. Becher points to changing demographics in Potts Point, with a more mature clientele in the area wanting more daytime options, something Le Frerot delivers with freshly baked boulangerie items and baguettes filled with ham and gruyere. Later in the day, it does good trade with dishes such as steak frites.
Becher, who also owns Armorica Grande Brasserie in Surry Hills, has been at the centre of the revival of French restaurants in Sydney. After the turn-of-the-20th-century golden era of Banc, Balzac and Becasse, when duck confit reigned on Sydney’s eat streets, a long dry spell followed where even major food developments opened without a French restaurant.
Lucette is a bistro-brasserie in true Parisian style.Max Mason-Hubers
Sydney has certainly shaken off any slowdown. This month, Loulou opens at domestic terminal T3, adding to the launch in February of sibling venue Cafe Loulou in North Sydney. In May, French restaurant Ananas will reopen at The Rocks. And Lucette, a bistro-brasserie in true Parisian style with a French former head chef at Monopole, has sprung up as the hottest new opening in the Southern Highlands.
“As for French dining, I don’t think it ever really left,” said Johan Giausseran, co-owner of L’Entrecote Group, which started on Sydney’s north shore before opening a restaurant at Circular Quay. The next stop for the group is Double Bay, where a new concept, Monsieur Paul, will fix its gaze on Lyonnaise gastronomy, French jazz and occasional “cabaret nights”.
“Very often, when people come to dine with us, it brings back memories of travels they’ve had in France, or it allows them to experience a little piece of it here without needing the flight ticket,” Giausseran said.
Sasi might be pitching the upcoming La Buvette as a Potts Point pit-stop venue for a drink and a bite, but it sounds appetisingly like somewhere you might want to tuck your legs under the table and hang around. “We’re going to do a crepe cake,” Sasi said of the sweet tail-end of the menu. “And miniature creme brulee in egg cups.”
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