Hemingway's Manly, French bistro by the beach

A writer's bar from 2011 that a French couple turned into a beachfront bistro.

Hemingway's has looked out over Manly's beachfront from 48 North Steyne since 2011. It began as a bar built in its namesake's image. The original owners, George McLean, Paul Fraser and Ben Pichon, put a stencil of the bearded writer above the door and filled dark wooden bookcases along one wall. Upstairs, black-and-white portraits of Hemingway hung among leather sofas and banquettes, and the menus came stapled into the pages of old encyclopaedias and children's storybooks.

In the winter of 2014 it changed hands. Sonia and Emmanuel, French restaurateurs who had moved to Australia with their family, took over what was by then a well-known Northern Beaches spot with a window onto the beach. Rather than start again, they kept its identity and changed the kitchen, steering the food towards home-made French cooking. They describe the result as part Montmartre bistro, part coffee and cocktail bar.

The day runs from breakfast through lunch to dinner, and the drinks lean on cocktails and French wine. Upstairs, a function room holds up to 50 guests.

It is a French bistro a few steps from the sand, in a room that started life as a writer's bar.