Tom Fitzmorris Review of The Bistro
Reviewed Tuesday, March 25, 2008.
I knew from the moment I arose where I'd go for dinner. That gave me a full day of delicious anticipation. It's one of the best reasons to make reservations a few days ahead. You start enjoying the meal long before you even start eating it.
The only reason I picked the Bistro for today is that I noticed, when I assembled today's Food Almanac last night, that this was Chef Greg Picolo's fifty-fourth birthday. All the reports on the place--even the early ones--have been good. But then the Bistro always did have a small group of diehard regulars. (A small group is the only kind the tiny cafè can handle.)
Everything went my way. The weather was cool and perfect. On the way to the garage, I found a long, legal parking space a block and a half from the restaurant. I was unknown to the dining room staff, which directed me to one of the uncomfortable tables along the left wall. Those are small even as deuces go, especially for a guy my size. But, as I said, I've thought about dining here all day, and this possibility entered my mind.
I started with the soup of the day, a thick (a little too), tan broth flavored with saffron, with fried cauliflower florets bobbing about. Unique, certainly, and reasonably good.
An appetizer bearing the curious name "frog leg grillades and grits" will have to be shoehorned high in my working list of the one hundred best restaurant dishes. The legs were the tender, little kind, panneed. Firm, good grits were in a pile at the bottom of the bowl, washed over by an intense, dark-brown sauce. Greg explained that it was a classic Creole sauce--the trinity plus tomatoes--with some demi-glace and Worcestershire. Whatever--this possessed deep, wonderful flavor. "It would make cat poop taste good!" said the chef. I'll take that on faith. With frog legs, it's as delicious as anything.
Greg didn't know I was there until I was already into the entree. Grilled black drum, just perfect, draped over a pile of risotto with peas and crabmeat. The rice grains had just enough cream to enrich, not so much to turn into goo. Grilled asparagus filled out the margin. A fine balance of good flavors, each giving its own pleasures. It never surprises me that Greg Picolo can turn out such food, but the pleasure is always fresh.
The big question about this restaurant among its pre-storm customers is, "How's it going without Patrick von Hoorebeck?" He was the long-time dining room manager, more visible and with a more ebullient style than Chef Greg--who himself isn't shy. I didn't have to ask to get the answer: it's going perfectly. The dining room doesn't have the verve Patrick brought it--the staff is a little too cheerleader-like in its understandable admiration of the chef. But it's still very much the Bistro.
The Bistro is now offering a Weekend Brunch from 10 a.m. -
3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Make the weekend last and come join us for Chef's special cream baked eggs and creole hash browns or other weekend treats.
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Hours of Operation
Thursday - Monday
Lunch Hours
11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Dinner Hours
6 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Brunch Hours
11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Click here to see our location
Lunch is served on Thursdays, Fridays and Mondays.
Brunch is served on Saturdays and Sundays.