Restaurant review: Ondine's a very welcome French bistro

If Daniel Giordani (Pulp Kitchen), Keaton McDonnell (also Pulp, and the Ottoman) and Abel Barriller (Les Bistronomes) received that advice from anyone they ignored it, opening the doors of their new upmarket Deakin diner in April. Yep, it's not pizza and pasta that might lend itself to shutdown takeaway. And it's not in a suburb where everyone is aged under 25 and is really not on with all the fuss.

Ondine is actual dining out, like three-course dining out, and it's plonk in the older inner south. My theory is inertia took hold. Once you plan a project, prepare a premises, write a menu, the juggernaut is rolling and you just shrug and let it propel you forward.

So it opened initially to takeaway, which really doesn't suit this style of plated French dining. And now to dine-in which absolutely does. The space turns out to be COVID-perfect, because it's roomy, with space for plenty of separation between tables without feeling empty. It's moody, decked out in soft dark grey blues, from memory a wooden floor with rugs, a low bar at one end where you can have a drink or eat - in all, a feel both upmarket and relaxing.

The food is French, reflecting the background of Giordani and Bariller, so the place is more similar to Les Bistronomes when it was in Braddon, than to Pulp (or Ottoman). Essentially, French bistro style, which is where I hope it stays, resisting any urge to get fancy. Fancy always feels to me more focused on the chef who produced it than the diner who is eating it.

Another good thing. No set menu. This makes us happy as our tolerance for set menus has been stretched to near obliteration. It's just good to be able to choose the amount of food and how we're going to tackle dinner for ourselves. We will still over-order of course, but we'll do it on our own terms.

On this occasion, don't skip the appetisers. The potato galette with pesto, white anchovy and Meyer lemon ($4.50) is such a great start - a little potato cake made of super-thin slices, crisped, with a slice of anchovy and the confit lemon. It adds to a salty, rich and lemony start.

Chicken liver pate with beer pickled onions and mushrooms ($18) is a big slice of pate with a simplicity and purity about it that we like. It's mild, with a gentle vinegar spike from the pickled onion and mushroom, and served with Sonoma malted sourdough toast. This has a nice understated quality.

The pickled sardines ($16) have also largely avoided the temptation for tarting up. The sardines are butterflied, again with a gentle pickle of peppers and onions, simple robust parsley leaves and a startling green watercress puree, robust like the parsley. So far, so happy.

French onion soup ($18) is intense and rich, in the sense of very much so indeed, so much so that it's like eating a beef stock that might go to flavour an entire stew. On top a slice of bread with Emmental the cheese adding to the intensity of this soup. It's too much for me; not so my friend, who likes it a lot. Perhaps my experience of this dish is coloured by those family dinner parties where it always came first before beef Wellington. I always liked it a lot, probably more so because by that time it was two hours past the allotted hour since after cooking dinner my mum was always much more interested in sitting down with a gin - or in those days a sherry - than eating. This is something I came to understand only once the family cooking fell to me.

With the exception of that little potato start, these have all been familiar dishes, but the Jerusalem artichoke main is utterly new. Roasted Jerusalem artichokes, braised sunflower seeds and chestnuts ($32) is very unusual - beautiful soft sweet and nutty artichokes and starchy chestnuts - they're two of my favourite things, with piles of sunflower seeds, which are essentially the base, the bulk, in this dish. In all, it's a little vinegary and salty, but interesting and rich, and it's great to be surprised by good things.

We're back to the intensity of the French onion soup with beef bourguignon with French-style mash ($34). It's super gelatinous, with chunks of very tender, rich meat, and a smooth, bland mash. Rib-sticking.

For dessert, something in the description of "chocolate custard Paris-Brest, raspberry sorbet and hazelnuts" ($16) is hard to resist. And that's kind of what it is - chocolate mousse and berry sorbet, both very good, especially the sorbet, in a ring-shaped sandwich of choux pastry. You get what you ask for, I guess, but I'd prefer this in a more delicate format. It's a rather large way to end a meal.

The wine list, too, is well chosen with loads of interest, largely focused on France and Canberra. And with Giordani managing the floor, that side of the evening runs well. We will head back to Ondine frequently and happily. A good addition to Canberra's dine-in scene.

Address: 7 Duff Place, Deakin

Phone: 62820026

Hours: Lunch: Friday-Saturday, noon-2.30pm; Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, 6pm-late.

Owners: Daniel Giordani, Abel Bariller, Keaton McDonnell

Chef: Keaton McDonnell

Vegetarian: Good - two mains, among other options

Noise: No problem