After Service: Marianne Poirey, Four Frogs Crêperie, Sydney

The French import, who has lived in Australia for nine years, is a hospitality all-rounder who has travelled and worked all over the world. Whether she was helping re-launch Le Jules Verne Restaurant in Paris or working in cost control for Marriott in French Polynesia, Marianne approaches life with eager tastebuds. Sure, they are always informed by her strong French upbringing and a love of French food, but wherever she is she will try to learn, understand and appreciate the food of the people she is with.

“I love to go to a restaurant where people are passionate about what they do and sharing their food, because by sharing their food, they are sharing a part of their culture,” the Four Frogs GM said. “Food is everything and it always connects people!”

Marianne feels the food culture in Australia has really matured in recent years, with the use of native ingredients, local produce and the production of fantastic wines. She finds Sydney a vibrant and diverse food city, where you can find practically all cuisines. Asian food is a particular standout for Marianne, but she is enthusiastic about the overall quality of the food scene.

We had the good fortune to sit down with the Coogee local after a recent trip back to France and she shared with us her love of authentic Mexican cuisine, where to find a baguette as good as you’d come across in Paris, restaurants she would take her French family if they came to Sydney and where to get the city’s finest cheeses, which she would know as her family is practically cheese selling and cheesemaking royalty.

What’s your favourite café for breakfast or brunch?

“After being in Australia for nine years, I’m a foodie and I’ve been in hospitality for 20 years now so my goal is always to look for new places. There is one place for breakfast that I really enjoy – it’s a Mexican place called Maiz and it’s on King St in Newtown. It reminds me of my time in Mexico. So you know sometimes you associate food with good memories and good times and the quality of this place just brings me back to the flavours and spices of Mexico.

There are two dishes I really love here: Sopes which is what I would call a Mexican tart, so it’s a slightly thick corn dough. With Sopes, I would have a Quesadilla, so you got a corn tortilla, then it’s like an envelope and it’s very crispy and everything is hand-made – the chef Juan Carlos [Negrete Lopez] is making absolutely everything in-house. The sauces, the corn tortillas… Maiz is extraordinary.” [Ed’s note: Maiz is currently only doing dinner service but are re-opening for breakfast and brunch soon – check the website for details].

So you told me that you are originally from the Franche-Comté region in France, famous for the fantastic Comté cheese, and your parents were cheese sellers, and your grandfather was an Emmenthal maker. So, where would you go in Sydney for really good cheese?

“There are two main places. One is called La Boite a Fromages which is also Cheese on Wheels, it’s in Balgowlah, just before Manly. It is a French shop, she is a French lady and she is an amazing acquaintance of mine. She does very traditional and good French cheese. I like what she does. And there is also Ocello on Bourke Street. Ocello has a bigger shop than La Boite a Fromages and they have amazing produce and I love the affinage room.”

If money was no object, where would you go for dinner and why?

“In Sydney, one of the classics is Quay facing the Opera House. It is very pricey, but I’ve been working with some of the chefs who work there, and I’ve been in contact with Peter Gilmore in the past, and I know that just by the quality of the food, the quality of the service, the sommelier, the produce that they are using, it’s the experience of an Australian fine dining restaurant, using native Australian ingredients. I have never been there, but I know how they work and I know what they do so if money was no object, I would definitely go there.”

If your family was coming from France to visit you, where would you go?

“I would go to Saint Peter, Josh Niland’s restaurant. He is a genius when it comes to fish, how to cook it with no wastage, and he uses local producers, local fisherman and thinks about sustainability, and it is amazing. I have been there and it is very pricey but definitely worth the experience. He has a shop next to his restaurant called the Fish Butchery and it does look like you are in a butcher’s. The way he cuts every piece of fish, he makes it look like a piece of meat and even the fish when it hangs at the front of the shop, you feel like it is a meat butchery and not a fish butchery which is super interesting, I find it fascinating. He is very young, but I am very impressed by what he does.

Or I would take them to Lennox Hastie’s Firedoor. This one would be for meat. So I have my fish one and I have my meat one. That is very important. Same, he is brilliant. His techniques in terms of cooking the meat, over fire, for the show, for the quality of the food and the service. Extraordinary, extraordinary!

I would take them to these two places to really taste the local produce, and show Australian food is not just fish and chips!”

If you could eat anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?

“There is a restaurant called St Hubertus, it’s in the Italian Alps, on the border with Austria. The chef [Norbert Niederkofler] was born in a village very close to the restaurant and it’s a three-star Michelin restaurant and he focuses on produce from the mountains. So this restaurant is like a very elegant, glamourous chalet, and he is doing only seasonal produce from the specific region that he is from. His objective is to provide an experience for the customers so that they discover local produce, the herbs, all the different flavours, he smokes everything himself, he has a massive garden, he picks everything from the bush, so it’s amazing. Norbert is fascinating. Where I am from is an hour’s drive from the mountains and I really do love this kind of restaurant because it reminds me of home. And I love the way he cooks and his techniques. There are thousands of other restaurants I would love to be in the world but this one, I love the décor, the atmosphere, the food, the feeling, and the service is spectacular. It is the full package.”

The best bakery in Sydney is…

“A place called Tonton in Surry Hills. They used to work only at the Willoughby French market and then four or five months ago they opened their first bakery and honestly this is the best baguette ever, well maybe not the best ever but the quality is very high! I finally found a shop that is doing baguettes the way they should be. Even compared to some bakeries in France, Tonton is excellent. And same for the croissants, the chocolate croissants, oh my goodness! It’s unreal. The pastry is very fluffy, because a real croissant has to be very fluffy, not flat, it has to be very light and fluffy and crunchy. It’s so important, the crust, when you crack your croissant, ahhhh… the secret is a ton of butter!

There is also an Australian baker, Iggy’s Bread, it used to be my bakery before Tonton. The bread is outstanding. They don’t do baguettes, but they do loaves with different types of flour like spelt, pumpkin and buckwheat. It is an amazing quality bread. Many restaurants use their bread. I have my French preferences, but I see the bread scene in Australia, and it is improving all the time, and if I have to compare to France, Tonton and Iggy’s bread – they are fantastique!”

What about your favourite French restaurant in Sydney?

“L’Héritage in Chowder Bay, close to Mosman. L’Heritage because the chef is French, Julien [Audibert-Lebon] is from Paris and I do find his cuisine very genuine, very simple, not overplayed for tourists but very tasty, and it does feel, not like my mum’s, because my mum’s is always way better, but it does remind me of many good places I have been in France. It is French, it is not mixed with an Australian influence. And the décor is brilliant, simple, elegant, so French-y, so chic, that kind of thing. Not overdone, just well done. I wouldn’t just go anywhere for the sake of eating French because I can cook it at home, so it has to be very good.

If you want very good French charcuterie, go to Porcine. They are all about pork, pate, terrine and it is all amazing. They have a very strong focus on charcuterie and they are great. As I said, I have my dealer for everything!”

Your favourite place to go shopping for food is…

“I go to Northside Produce Market in North Sydney, which is not every week, but every Saturday I would go to Carriageworks. These are the two main places I do my shopping, veggies, sometimes meat, but mainly fruit and veggies. Different seasons you can get a truffle supplier, a mushroom supplier, so I always go and get my fresh produce.”

After a long week, what’s your favourite place to unwind with a glass of wine?

“That would be Love, Tilly Devine. It’s a small place, local, the wine is genuine, a bit quirky and original. I think Australia is doing so well with wine, and I love this place because they are always in search of new suppliers, local producers, they’ve got some organic wines, a lot of natural wines. So for quality wine I would go there.

But I am more of a Negroni person, I have to say. Negroni or Mezcal, I have two spirits depending on the kind of mood I am in! Do I go wine, or do I go Mezcal or Negroni? For a Negroni, there is a fantastic bar with a rooftop, Old Mate’s Place. Fantastic cocktails, spectacular Negroni, and the rooftop is very cosy and the bar is very old-fashioned, books everywhere, atmosphere dark and and I love that.

And for Mezcal, Cantina OK! They focus exclusively on Mezcal and nothing else. The owner is Australian but he has travelled a lot in Mexico, sourcing Mezcal, Tequila and agave syrup. It is a fantastic place, it is very, very small, but it is part of my love for Mexico.”

I think I know the answer to this one, but where can you find the best crêpe in Sydney?

“[Laughs!] It’s not because this is my business, but Four Frogs, let’s be honest, is now here for nine, ten years. And nine, ten years ago the French crêpe didn’t really exist in Australia, no one really knew what a galette was. But over the past eight years there are more competitors, more small cafes in Sydney that are doing crêpe, but they are not as good as ours! We have an authentic, very traditional way of making our crêpe and galette. So the crêpe is with flour and the galette is made with buckwheat flour. The galette is savoury, the crêpe is sweet and most of my chefs, I would say 80 per cent, are from Brittany, on the west side of France, where the crêpe and galette are from and they are amazing there.”

We did bring our traditional methods of cooking with our equipment and we mill our own flour in-house. We have an organic supplier in NSW, close to Orange, then we mill our flour in our shop in Randwick. And we go through a minimum of a ton of flour a month, it’s quite a lot. So we have our four stores, in Randwick, Mosman, Lane Cove and Circular Quay and I know from asking so many people, so many Francophiles that Four frogs have the best crêpe and galette. And I know that in France some crepes are absolutely horrible compared to what we do at Four Frogs. And when I was in France last month, I went to some creperies, so I was like, we are really good at Four Frogs. I was very impressed. I would 100% recommend that you try one.”

Marianne Poirey’s After Service address book:

Maiz Mexican Street Food: 415 King Street Newtown, NSW 2042

La Boite a Fromages: 397 Sydney Road, Balgowlah NSW 2093 (also various market locations)

Formaggi Ocello: 16/425 Bourke St, Surry Hills NSW 2010

Quay: Upper Level Overseas Passenger Terminal, The Rocks NSW 2000

Saint Peter: 362 Oxford St, Paddington NSW 2021

Firedoor: 23-33 Mary St, Surry Hills NSW 2010

St Hubertus: Strada Micurà de Rü, 20, 39036 San Cassiano BZ, Italy

Tonton Bread: 100 Fitzroy St, Surry Hills NSW 2010

Iggy’s Bread: 131 Macpherson St, Bronte NSW 2024

L’Héritage: 7b Chowder Bay Rd, Mosman NSW 2088

Porcine: 268 Oxford Street, Paddington NSW 2021

Northside Produce Market: Ted Mack Civic Park, 200 Miller St, North Sydney NSW 2060

Carriageworks Farmers Market: 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh NSW 2015

Love, Tilly Devine: 91 Crown Ln, Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Old Mate’s Place: Level 4/199 Clarence St, Sydney NSW 2000

Cantina OK!: Council Pl, Sydney NSW 2000

Four Frogs Crêperie: Gateway Sydney, 1 Macquarie Pl, Sydney NSW 2000 (also in Mosman, Lane Cove and Randwick)