A Little Frenchie Catch-Up with Sab Eats World
When you work for yourself, it can become surprisingly easy to forget to… actually have a life outside of work.
There’s always another email to reply to, content to edit, a client to follow up, invoices, shoots to organise, social media to post, or another idea sitting in the back of your mind.
And unlike working in an office, there isn't always someone sitting next to you to have lunch with or chat to throughout the day.
Sometimes running your own business can feel quite lonely.
I've been trying to become more intentional about actually setting aside time to see friends—not for networking, not to talk about business opportunities, and definitely not to create another piece of content.
Just to catch up and enjoy being around people I care about.
So recently, I went to Frenchie with one of my good friends of more than 15 years, @sabeatswrld.
And considering Sab does a lot of very honest food reviews, I trusted her to pick the restaurant 😂
Frenchie is a French-inspired restaurant and bar tucked away on Collins Street in Melbourne CBD. The concept is pretty simple: the food menu is built around $14 plates designed for sharing, making it easy to order a bunch of things and try them together.
Which, obviously, we did.
We started with the Huîtres, daily oysters with champagne mignonette.
I've somehow developed a newfound obsession with oysters lately, so I genuinely could have eaten about 20 of these.
Then came the Petits choux de crabe, with blue swimmer crab, cucumber and avocado. Another favourite because I will happily eat almost anything involving crab or seafood.
Then we tried the Brioche aux escargots. My first time eating snails! They were actually quite nice and chewy, although if I'm being completely honest, most of what I could taste was delicious garlic butter. 😂
We also ordered squid, which I've completely forgotten the name of, but again seafood, so naturally I enjoyed it.
For something a little heavier, we had the duck and Rôti d'agneau, a lamb rump with thyme jus and persillade crumble. Lam is my favourite meat.
And because apparently we hadn't ordered enough little plates already, we finished with the Poire pochée au vin, a red wine-poached pear with crumble and Chantilly.
And Obviously, Drinks
We also tried three of their non-alcoholic drinks:
Strawberry & Balsamic Highball
Chamomile Yuzu Pétillant
Hibiscus Mandarin Frais
All three are currently part of Frenchie's $14 mocktail menu.
Overall, I really enjoyed the experience. The atmosphere was lovely, the people were welcoming, and it was fun being able to order lots of different dishes instead of committing to one giant meal.
Although, one recommendation from me: if you're really hungry, maybe eat something filling beforehand.
The menu is designed around small plates and sharing rather than big individual mains, so I personally saw it more as somewhere to graze, have drinks, catch up and try lots of different flavours. Frenchie itself describes the menu as French classics designed for sharing.
And for what we wanted that night, it was perfect.
A Reminder to Actually Leave the Office
But I think my favourite part of the night wasn't really the food.
It was sitting across from someone I've known for more than 15 years and just… talking about life.
When you're building something, it's very easy for your business to consume your identity.
There's always something you could be doing.
But I'm learning that having a successful creative career shouldn't mean disappearing from the relationships and experiences that existed before it.
Sometimes you need to close the laptop.
Leave the editing for tomorrow.
Go eat an unreasonable number of dishes with an old friend.
And talk about absolutely everything.
Your business will still be there when you get home.
More Melbourne Finds
This is part of my little reminder to explore more of Melbourne outside of shoots, meetings and work. If you're looking for more cafés, restaurants, creative spaces and places I've stumbled across around the city.
You can find more of my Melbourne Finds on
