Felix

You've gotta love the whole idea of a brasserie. It's like a working men's club - originally for beer-drinking refugees from Alsace-Lorraine in Paris - yet its decor evokes the grandeur of the Belle Epoque with ornate brass lamps, booths, banquettes. It's football-field large, and loud, and has the most democratic menu in the world.

There are steaks and charcuterie if you want meat, and shellfish if you don't, magnificently presented on platters mounded high with ice and sat upon high-ringed stands; salads as salads, salads as meals, and always, always cheese. It comes with built-in familiarity (Monday is boeuf bourguignon, Tuesday is bouillabaisse) and an almost theatrical sense of hospitality from inevitably world-weary waiters whose feet are killing them.

It's such a strong, resolute, unassailably French concept that it can travel the world and still retain its innate integrity, as Terence Conran proved in London with the gigantic Quaglino's and as Keith McNally continues to prove in New York with Balthazar in SoHo and Pastis in the Meatpacking District.

Now it's the turn of Sydney's ridiculously busy Merivale group to bring the concept to Sydney. Tucked away in the alleyway opposite Ash Street Cellars, Felix has been designed as an affectionate homage by Dreamtime Australia's Michael McCann. It looks like every brasserie I've seen; a pastiche of long-aproned waiters, ornate bread stations, a beautifully realised zinc bar; the requisite brass railway luggage racks, honeycomb-tiled floor, bentwood bistro chairs, walls of wine and fringed table lamps. It even has a glamorous, crescent-shaped, ice-packed shellfish bar in homage to the ecaillers, or oyster-openers, at the big brasseries of Paris.

Lauren Murdoch has moved across from the smaller, more personal Ash Street Cellars, and taken on a much more challenging role here as executive chef. With head chef Simun Dragicevich (ex Bistro CBD), she has created a menu as instantly familiar as the setting. Let's face it, they had to. If they didn't have staples such as chicken liver pate, steak tartare, duck confit and flank steak with fries, bolstered with oysters and fruit de mer platters there'd be hell to pay.

Felix has pretty much been full since opening shortly before Christmas. I've done a late-night drop-in, a quickie business lunch and a leisurely dinner so far, and eaten well throughout. The stand-out dish has been a superbly made chicken liver pate with a zesty, syrupy currant relish ($16), flanked with good, tart cornichons and rough, torn hunks of grill-marked sourdough bread in an irresistible blend of rustic and refined.

The two things I know about Lauren Murdoch is that she can out-work most blokes, yet she cooks in an almost domestic, flavour-driven manner. It makes her the perfect "chef/matron" as she mollifies any overly macho dishes with a sweet clarity of her own. The ubiquitous duck leg confit ($34), for instance, is lightened by the bittersweet addition of grilled radicchio and pickled pears.

Other things are left well enough alone. A twice-baked gruyere souffle ($22) is just as richly cheesy as that of Bistro Moncur, although I take exception to it being listed merely as a souffle, which you don't expect to have been doused with cream and re-baked. Dense, intense, slow-cooked tripes a la Lyonnaise ($24) is made traditionally, using green, unblanched tripe. And the fruits de mer (from $145 for two) is simply a pile of prawns, bugs, scallops, lobster and impeccable oysters, served with sauce Marie-Rose.

The wine list is a doozy, with a French accent as distinctive as that of Merivale's head sommelier Franck Moreau. While there is plenty of Romanee Conti and Latour, there is also an array of brasserie-friendly wines available by the glass, carafe and bottle, including a juicy, citrussy 2008 William Fevre Petit Chablis ($12/$36/$60). It's good matched with golden crumbed lamb's brains ($18) served with a verdant, herby ravigot sauce and - not quite sure about this - steamed daikon.

Summer desserts don't get much more time-and-place than a dazzling tumble of sliced peaches, mixed berries and pomegranate seeds topped with a drained bundle of vanilla yoghurt and dotted with dainty heart's ease flowers ($18).

The downside of Felix is the same as every good brasserie: it's bloody noisy. I'd love to see some plats du jour and world-weary old waiters beside the smooth young brigade. But whether you think of Felix as rip-off or homage, it's nevertheless done with care, faithfulness, detail, a lot of energy and plenty of good food. You've gotta love it.

tdurack@smh.com.au