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Bilson’s

Hushed and expensive, you could mistake Bilson’s for the wrong kind of restaurant. But though Tony Bilson is known as a paragon of French culinary tradition in Australia, things here aren’t preserved in aspic – even if there’s one on the menu. Bilson and fellow chef Manu Feildel are as enamoured of the new French cooking as the classical, so you have the influence of Michel Bras, say, alongside that of Point and Escoffier. Veal sweetbreads, golden and plump, are utterly old-school with truffled leeks and sauce Madeira, but are teamed, too, with a salad of Asian mushrooms and a baby carrot sealed in a ‘clay’ of ground rice. The loose deck of Grimaud duck breast slices makes the case for convention with its elegant accompaniment of green olive slices and purée and watercress. Desserts, such as apple ‘in all its states’, are good, but perhaps not as good as the $35 price tag would suggest.