Character, not caricature: This suburban East Freo bistro is both accessible and comforting

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Legendary British chef Marco Pierre White believes, hand on his cheeseburger, that cooking is about refinement, not invention. Sam Davies, despite operating decades after White’s hey-day as London dining’s enfant terrible, adopts a similarly classicist approach to La Lune.

Since taking over the old George Street Quarters space in East Fremantle four years ago, Davies has been fine-tuning his French restaurant and wine bar, stripping away the frou frou while preserving the essence of the neighbourhood bistro.

The result: a brisk, timeless space where sturdy wine glasses are more function than form, the relatively well-priced menu is conspicuously free of luxury big-ticket ingredients, and the buzz is perpetual, even on a weeknight when the rest of Rue Georges is in bed. (And even despite the impact that the Fremantle Bridge closure has had on local businesses.)

On Fridays, a nightclub-style queue starts hugging the footpath by 6pm. La Lune only takes bookings for groups of three or more, so this line is, like the passenger manifest of Noah’s Ark, full of couples and hope.

For those seated on the terrace during peak periods, it’s hard not to shake the feeling that someone(s) is watching you, mentally willing you not to order that second glass of muscadet. Davies was formerly sommelier at vaunted East Perth fine diner Restaurant Amuse and his thrilling drinks list exemplifies an interest in drinking well.

Chef Oskar Pinter, a product of The Loose Box in Mundaring, also comes from good Perth dining stock. While many of Paris’s current it-bistros sport strong Asian accents – think Le Cheval d’Or, Jip or Double Dragon – La Lune’s concise menu is built around French classics prepared with care.

Few things are more bistro than steak frites, especially when that steak is bavette: a beefy, loose-grained cut from the abdomen that eats tender rather than fatty: or at least if you’re talking grass-fed flank (the cut’s English name) grilled to medium-rare over charcoal. A deep red wine demi-glace makes a fine coup de grace, freeing up the accompanying thick bearnaise for swiping excellent pommes alumettes (skin-on matchstick fries) through.

Both bavette and barbie get reunited in the steak tartare. The hearth gives half-slices of Common Bakery white bread a strong char while the beef gets spun into an unusually fresh, fleet-footed expression of the Perth menu staple.

Pinter frequently uses acid to counter all that butter and cream he’s hiding in things. Lacky bands of pickled red onion and spicy piparra peppers – the vinegary green chillies of French-Basque cuisine – play minder to an airy slab of country-style pork and duck terrine studded with hazelnuts. Rich, unctuous slices of poached beef tongue are paired with minced mushrooms buzzing with a mouth-puckering vinegarette. Approach these ’shrooms with caution.

Like Davies, Pinter keeps things on the (white, round, classic bistro)plate similarly tight. Not that La Lune is a museum of sterile austerity. All those classic bistro signifiers are there – vintage spirit posters, zinc tabletops, bentwood stools that get recast as table extensions when you order too much – but they’ve been kept to a minimum so that they conjure character rather than caricature.

The real characters, though, are the French-speaking waiters: fast-moving, chatty, and adorned in Breton stripes and denim: France’s two great contributions to unisex fashion. Led by restaurant managers Julie Papillon and Corentin Lemore, La Lune’s service team is proof of the great that happens when let well-drilled waiters with personality be themselves. (For hospitality folks starting out, note that “personality” and “attitude” are two different kettles of poisson.)

Speaking of fish, the seafood dishes often see Pinter discreetly yet cleverly rewriting the script. The brown butter sauce for the sol meuniere of New Zealand flounder is enriched with diced capers (a classic meuniere variant) and cornichons (not so classic). His salad Nicoise with seared tuna sees its olive component reworked as an intense tapenade: that famous signature from Provence, some two hours west of the French Riviera by car. Who says refinement means being a slave to tradition?

Yet, paradoxically, there are also times when refinement means just that. Consider the slender, crisp-edged Madeleines. Not “Madeleines”. Not Textures of Madeleine, but the classic French sponge cake, baked to order and served with a vivid lemon curd.

No wheels have been reinvented or, deep breath, deconstructed: it’s just an example of respecting the old-school and doing the little things well. Much like La Lune.

For anyone who appreciates the warmth and immediacy of freshly baked goods, the 15 minutes it takes the kitchen to bake those Madeleines will fly right by.

If you’re in line waiting for a table? Not so much.

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