When Restaurant Mirepoix revamped its concept last November, emerging as a high-end, multi-course prix fixe format, some fans of the downtown Windsor landmark lamented the loss of the more casual, classic French dishes that chef-owner Matthew Bousquet used to serve.
By January, however, Bousquet and his wife Bryan (she’s also the restaurant’s wine director and general manager), were back to making everyone happy, with the opening of Bistro M. The eatery took over the former Langley’s on The Green space just around the corner from Mirepoix, and its menu is laden with reasonably priced signature favorites at lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch.
Familiar belly-fillers are in abundance, like coq au vin ($15) and steak au poivre ($20), crepes Suzette ($11), Caesar salad strewn with real anchovies ($9), and a hamburger ($9). It’s also one of my favorite destinations for expertly done staples like boeuf bourguignon ($18), cassoulet ($19), mussels in white wine broth with frites ($12), and sole meuniere ($17) atop fingerling potatoes and spinach.
Flash forward to summer. A recent re-visit to Bistro M reminded me that, amid all the comfort fare, this café brims with big city dishes that would be at home in any stylish Parisian neighborhood.
Nicely chewy escargot swimming in garlic butter ($12)? Bien sur. French onion soup ($9)? But of course, all sweet and rich and hot and gooey, draped in bubbling cheese. I picked frog’s legs ($14) clean, pleased with the tender meat reminiscent of chicken or catfish.
The Gallic mood starts at the foyer, with its French-pane doors and windows hung with sheer embroidered curtains. You can relax with a cocktail at the six-seat bar, or vie for one of the coveted five seats overlooking the peek-a-boo exposition kitchen, where you’re mere inches away from the cooks.
The bar is also a great place for a cocktail and charcuterie ($12), presented in displays of house-cured salmon, artisan salami, pork pate, trout rillettes, duck liver mousse and prosciutto. For the freshest seafood, check the olive green shutter-framed chalkboard listing oysters-of-the-day ($1.75 each).
If you crave authentic sweetbreads, chef Ben Davies has you covered. The original talent of Mirepoix, he had left two years ago to take sous-chef positions with The Restaurant at Meadowood and Murray Circle at Cavallo Point. But he’s now back in the kitchen at Bistro M, and he has a skilled hand with the savory thymus glands, offering them au natural with frites ($11), and as a creative brunch dish, fashioned into a Benedict ($16).
Digging into a platter of lamb neck ($12) may not seem immediately appealing, but it’s extremely tender, flavorful meat thanks to collagen that dissolves into silky texture and sauce. For a more approachable meal, lamb shank ($19) arrives in fall-apart chunks over caper-olive risotto, tomato confit and Swiss chard; it’s one of the best renditions I’ve had in the North Bay.
A Sunday special of bouillabaisse is a great tribute to the seafood mélange and a bargain at $17, while duck confit ($17) gets some welcome crunch from walnuts, plated with spinach, dainty mushrooms, P’tit Basque cheese and picked onions.
If you’re in the mood for butter, meanwhile, you’ve hit the jackpot. A Croque Madame ($10) tastes nearly fried after its turn on the grill, the long, slender slab of toast stuffed with tangy cheese, buried under Mornay sauce and a fried egg. Interestingly, the sandwich I got one afternoon was stuffed with shaved roast beef instead of the expected ham, but either way, it’s a filling meal, paired with a crisp salad and a generous pile of thin-cut herbed frites alongside aioli for dunking.
When Mirepoix changed its concept, Bryan promised that some cherished dishes would be resurrected at Bistro M, and indeed, the butterscotch pudding ($6) is back in all its buttery-brown sugar glory.
For another dessert pick, “saddened” chocolate cake ($6) is actually a joy. As my cheerful server explained, the confection gets its cute name from the fact that that the round is depressed in the middle, where the rich, crusty exterior collapses to a warm center of molten fudge.
At Mirepoix, the Bousquet family wows with remarkable culinary tricks like goat cheese foam poufed atop onion tart layered with beets and arugula and drizzled in balsamic. The multi-course tasting menu changes nearly every night – though ingredients may remain similar, Bousquet switches how he presents them – lobster and pork belly as a thick slice of braised pig with a small lobster tail one night, for example, and as lobster-truffle ravioli with lardons the next.
And that’s magical.
Yet sometimes, you’ve just got to have a simpler, soul-satisfying chicken paillard ($12), quiche Florentine ($12) or tuna Nicoise ($13).
For that, you’ll be hard pressed to find any better piece of Paris than Bistro M.
Details: Bistro M, 610 McClelland Drive, Windsor, 707-838-3118, thebistrom.com. Restaurant Mirepoix, 275 Windsor River Road, Windsor, 707-838-0162, restaurantmirepoix.com.
