Peek inside The French Exit – Anyday’s take on the classic Parisian-style bistro
Anyday’s blockbuster year is ending with a very French flourish. Set within a heritage Mary Street landmark, Parisian-style bistro The French Exit is blending familiarity with finesse. Here, the wine list runs deep, the cocktails are French-accented and the steak frites are non-negotiable. Consider it your new excuse to linger in the city a little longer.
Few restaurant groups can claim to have had as big a year as Anyday did in 2025.
In the span of 365 days, the hospitality hitmaker has cut the ribbon on three distinct venues – a barnstorming run that started in April with the blockbuster bakery-cafe hybrid Idle in New Farm, before continuing in August with the opening of Middle Eastern-inspired Golden Avenue, the group’s first foray into the inner city.
And then, over the weekend, Anyday completed the hospo hat-trick with the soft opening of The French Exit, an homage to Parisian-style bistro dining.
French food is a first for the group, which has ticked off an impressive number of classic cuisines across its now eight-strong stable of venues. But the team reveals that French cuisine wasn’t initially on the cards when the group signed on to transform the old Coal Board Building on Mary Street into a multi-venue dining precinct.
“We were actually exploring a different concept for where The French Exit is, but one of us made a Freudian slip and called it ‘the bistro’,” reveals Anyday co-owner Tyron Simon. “There was a lightbulb moment where we realised this building – and this level, in particular – needed a French bistro. How had we not seen it before?”
“Ty and I love beautiful buildings and we try to get the best out of them,” adds co-owner and group culinary director Ben Williamson. “You don’t come across buildings of this calibre often. It was almost like the architecture and the beautiful internal heritage characteristics informed what this venue should be.”
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Like all of Anyday’s venues, The French Exit gained form through an extensive ideation process where everything was taken into consideration – from aesthetics and culinary direction to customer utility and how the concept fits within the overall dining landscape.
“You’ve got to put it through the lens of what’s really going to make sense,” says Ben. “We can come out with a new concept that’s completely unique – something that’s going to change the game – but is that really going to resonate with the customer in the way that we need it to?”
“We really want the city venues to entice people to come back and dine often, and feel like they’re coming home, in a way.”
With that in mind, The French Exit is a venue designed for repetition, not occasion. Though the dining room is clothed in the finery of an elegant old-school bistro, a friendly ambience, casual approachability and a hint of local inspiration help make it feel transportive, yet familiar.
“We wanted it to feel like you are in Paris – you step through the door and we’ve transported you there,” says Ben. “By appearance, it feels very French. We want the vibe to be very much a bistro, very casual but with a frenetic pace to it – busy, lots of chatter.”
Anyday has once again linked up with interior designer Tamsin Johnson to shape The French Exit’s visual identity, which the crew inform us is couched in a sense of timelessness, comfort, seclusion, routine and decadence – plus a pinch of nostalgia.
“Tamsin’s family history has always been in vintage pieces of furniture – she has such a great grounding in French traditions and French antiques that [working with her] made so much sense,” says Tyron.
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“We wrote a couple of paragraphs, handed them over and what she delivered a week after being briefed is almost identical to what got made, which is incredible,” says Ty. “She was able to nail exactly what we wanted.”
The French Exit is a venue rich in details, from the butter-yellow gloss walls and a U-shaped pressed-zinc bar (fronted by a strip of brass bar stools), to the soft tan leather banquettes, parquetry floors and half-height lace curtains. A monolithic stainless steel kitchen is a stark but intentional juxtaposition, enough of an aesthetic shift to remind guests that they’re still in an Anyday venue.
Helming the kitchen are executive chef John-Paul Fiechtner (formerly sous-chef at Paris’ Le Châteaubriand) and head chef Ryan Carlson. With input from Ben, the team has fashioned a menu that balances tradition with modernity, utilising premium local ingredients to showcase the soul of French cuisine in fun and interesting ways.
“A French bistro focused through the lens of Brisbane, essentially, is what [The French Exit] is,” says Ben. “When you look at the menu, it very much reads like a classic French bistro, but there’s elements in there that just elevate it beyond to an Australian palate.”
For Parisian-style purists, know that the essentials are well represented. The offering is partitioned into hors d’oeuvres, entrees, charcuteries, grillades, plats principaux, special sur commande (large-format mains that require 72 hours’ notice) and desserts. Expect snacks like chicken-liver parfait eclairs and escargot swimming in garlic-parsley butter, and evergreen entrees including steak tartare and comte tarts. There’s also steak frites, duck a l’orange and pork cutlets, plus creme brulee for dessert.
But look deeper into the menu and you’ll spy a host of dishes beyond the familiar faves – we’re talking barbajuans, lapin ravigote (jellied rabbit with ravigote sauce), Toulouse sausage with peas a la Francaise and whole rock lobster with sauce thermidor.
The beverage program naturally leans on the restaurant’s French inspirations, with head sommelier Gianluca Giardini fashioning a wine list nudging 600 references that encompass the country’s great wine regions. An approachable by-the-glass list leads into an expansive 500-bottle selection featuring emerging appellations and rare labels.
Group bar manager Marco Nunes has concocted a cocktail menu that is similarly French-accented – daiquiris infused with pastis, margaritas laced with Côte d’Azur citrus, and gin sours with Byrrh (an aperitif made from red wine, mistelle and quinine) and apricot.
“Like at Same Same, where we serve generally classic cocktails with a Southeast Asian influence to them, we’ve done the same thing here but with French ingredients,” explains Ty.
Though the year has been a big one for the Anyday team, there’s more on the cards for 2026. While not yet complete, the burgeoning Mary Street precinct in which The French Exit and Golden Avenue reside hints at the group’s overall intention – to reframe how Brisbane dines in the city.
“Brisbane has proven it does love a precinct,” says Ty. “James Street and Howard Smith Wharves are defined dining precincts, and people naturally gravitate to them en masse. Even if they don’t have a booking, they can go, ‘Well, if we can’t get in there, we might try here’.”
“It’s been a really challenging year, I won’t lie. But we not only got through, we got what we wanted open, at the level we wanted.”
The French Exit is now open – head to The Directory for booking details, menu info and other information.