From French fare to after-dark flair – Le Royale arrives in The City

For Tyron Simon, Le Royale is a project informed by both the past and the future.

Before he became co-founder of Anyday Hospitality, Tyron ran Bowler Bar – one of Fortitude Valley’s preeminent nightclubs. While the latest chapter of his hospitality career has seen Tyron transition away from sweaty clubs to restaurant dining rooms, there’s still a part of him that yearns for the energy of a packed dance floor.

“I love music,” says Tyron, who can often be seen DJing at events like the James St Food + Wine Trail. “I still buy records at home. I’m as much invested in music as I am in food, and I feel that part of me is missing in restaurants. Getting people dancing is amazing … that feeling is almost unreplicable in my daily life.”

Tyron is scratching his musical itch at Le Royale, Anyday’s music lounge and cocktail bar. The venue officially opens tonight – Saturday, February 28 – on the top floor of the heritage-listed Coal Board Building at 169 Mary Street, joining Parisian-inspired ground-floor bistro The French Exit and neighbouring Middle Eastern oasis Golden Avenue as part of the group’s growing enclave in the heart of The City.

While the multi-venue precinct as a whole is intended to enliven the inner-city dining scene with a diverse offering, its ambitions extend further. Nowhere is that more apparent than at Le Royale.

At its core, Le Royale is a late-night venue – one where food, drink and revelry are available until the early hours. It’s designed for the in-between moments – post-theatre dinners, spontaneous second rounds or travellers chasing a final nightcap. Tyron has been outspoken in the past about the need for a more vibrant nighttime economy in Brisbane, particularly now that the city is poised to seize the global spotlight in just over six years’ time. Now, he’s putting that philosophy into practice.

“We’ve got the Olympics, and we want Brisbane to be seen as an international city, which involves a vibrant nightlife economy,” says Tyron. “But how do you create this vibrant nightlife, so that when the Olympics arrive, we have this amazing showcase of our great city? How will the nightlife be authentic if we don’t start establishing the basic identity now?”

Le Royale joins a growing number of inner-city venues looking to create a distinct late-night identity – Milquetoast serves food until midnight, while Alice pours drinks every night of the week until 3:00 am. Where Le Royale differs is the breadth of its offering – it caters to party animals, post-theatre diners and travellers alike.

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“Sometimes it’s 10:00 pm and you’re not ready to go home – you want some food, somewhere to relax, a good cocktail … probably a combination of all those things. Here, you can enjoy music, great drinks and a relaxed atmosphere.”

The clearest expression of Le Royale’s identity comes through its music program.

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From Thursday to Saturday, the Le Royale stage (equipped with a top-of-the-line sound system and acoustics from Soho Sound Design) will play host to three rotating live house bands, each performing jazz-inspired reinterpretations of familiar hits, leaning into the enjoyably unexpected.

“I really love this idea of the optics of something looking one way,” says Tyron. “Our band will all be wearing tuxedos and ballgowns, but the band’s singing ‘WAP’ or a hip-hop song that’s got some coarse language in it.

“You think you’re going somewhere serious – the reality is that the band appears quite serious, but the content of what they’re delivering is the opposite. It’s fun.”

Le Royale’s food offering is described as ‘cocktail-style’ dining, with culinary inspiration drawn from The French Exit downstairs. That means you can expect some French-style snacks with a refined edge, including prawn sandwiches with avocado, lettuce and citrus aioli, fried pigs-head cromesquis with sauce gribiche and chervil, chicken liver-parfait eclairs, and steak tartare with egg yolk, walnut and pommes gaufrettes.

For a heartier feed, look to the venue’s signature burger – the Le Royale with cheese, which boasts a beef-and-bacon patty, cheese, special sauce, pickles and lettuce. To finish, there are made-to-order madeleines and house-made soft-serve. On Fridays and Saturdays, food is available until 1:30 am.

"“Sometimes it’s 10:00 pm and you’re not ready to go home – you want some food, somewhere to relax, a good cocktail … probably a combination of all those things. Here, you can enjoy music, great drinks and a relaxed atmosphere.”"

Behind the venue’s glowing carved giallo sienna marble bar, Le Royale’s cadre of cocktail makers will dispense vino from Anyday’s reserve wine cellar list and crafted libations that favour seasonality, precision and freshness of flavour.

Overseeing the menu is Anyday bar operations manager Marco Nunes who, alongside Elliot Pascoe and Dan Herberg, has crafted a list imbued with cheeky pop-culture references. The approach balances technical precision with playfulness.

“When presented, [the cocktails] seem very simple, but there’s so much depth of flavour,” explains Tyron. “They read simply, so you know the style, but there’s a surprising element beneath the surface.”

The cocktail list leads with eight signatures that will shift seasonally. Currently, Pulp Fiction is the theme, with highlights including the Ezekiel 25:17, I Wanna Dance, I Wanna Win, and the Oh Man, I Shot Marvin in the Face. A rotating collaborative element adds another layer – launching with contributions from designer Tamsin Johnson and milliner Tess Ebinger.

Tamsin Johnson is also responsible for shaping Le Royale’s interior scheme, continuing The French Exit’s elegant and measured opulence upstairs – though in moodier tones. Where The French Exit is warm and buttery, Le Royale is dark and rich – mirrored surfaces, silk moire walls, burgundy banquettes, floral carpets, golden velvet curtains, and red and pink marble tables crowned by tasseled lamps.

“There is the story of a rich space, told with textural collision and intensity,” says Tamsin. “For me this was also about creating that warmth, seclusion and comfort. Some real intrigue. A very transported sensation that serves as a total and utter escape from the familiar light-and-bright Brisbane.”

A central wall divides the space into East and West wings, accommodating 120 guests.

Alongside fellow Anyday Group co-founders Bianca Marchi, Ben Williamson and Frank Li, Tyron is thinking long term about the evolution of the hospitality group’s inner-city hub. Though Anyday has set a cracking pace on openings (four venues in 12 months – with more to come later this year), sustainability and interconnectedness are key to the undertaking.

“In The City, it was always about building a precinct,” says Tyron. “It was never about short-term success. It was about building something long term.”

With the Olympics on the horizon, Tyron believes venues like Le Royale can help shape a more confident after-dark identity for Brisbane – one built now, not assembled later.

“We’re warm and we’re hospitable and that can’t be faked,” he says. “That people element is what makes Brisbane special.”

If Le Royale delivers on its promise, it won’t just fill a late-night gap – it might just get The City dancing again.

Le Royale is opening to the public tonight – operating hours, booking details and menu info can be found in The Directory.