Beaucoup de Bistros

          It’s not that the average impressionable, curious, amiable New Yorker wants to give up seaweed ravioli with pomegranate seeds or blue corn pancakes with red-snapper chili. It’s just that our taste buds are taxed by cuisinary overreach. For a long time, there have been mutinous mutterings in the feeding trade, and the word one hears muttered is…"bistro."

          We are witnessing a bistro backlash, a downwardly mobile statement. An answer to the grand cafes, the menus with 112 items from 78 nations, the tortured edible still lifes, the insolent matings of bird and beast with exotic fruits. Technically, as Larousse has it, a bistro is a bar. But in the delicious cross-pollution that sends distorted meaning back and forth across the Atlantic, the word has come to signal simplicity. I think of roast chicken and mashed potatoes, navarin of lamb, steak frites, waiters in long aprons, gentle prices. The mouth waters at visions of pig’s feet, brains in brown butter, cassoulet, rabbit stew, the perfect crème caramel.

          A much traveled friend insists a bistro must be bright. That’s a brasserie, I reply. A thoughtful architect contends it’s not a bistro if you can read the menu without a cigarette lighter. Indeed, it isn’t a classic bistro unless the menu is handwritten, illegible, and mimeographed in purple. “It must be all hard surfaces, “ he continues, “noisy, with bad ventilation, an active bar, chairs with Naugahyde seats, tablecloths in colors from a palette of a ladies-underwear designer, and waiters in medium aprons and bow ties.” On some or all of these counts, the ventures that follow may not be technically bistros…but they’re blowing in the backlash.
 

Homage to L’Ami Louis

          “Well of course I want to know what’s new and wonderful,” I told my haute cuisine connections when I arrived in Paris last April. “I’ll eat kidney fritters with prunes and deep-fried kale if you say so. But tell me where to go for food like that at L’Ami Louis.”

          “But there is nothing like L’Ami Louis,” they insisted. It is unique. Everyone’s favorite bistro. “Nothing even comes close. Forget that you have already reviewed it,” my friend with a once-a-week L’Ami Louis habit urged. “The old man is 86 now and who knows how long…”

          Shaken to the depths of my professional neophilia, I returned to the dingy ancient landmark, succumbing to the obligatory slab of foie gras, plump snails in their garlicked craters, perfect chicken, and a redundancy of potato -- deep-fried strings and crisp potato cake confetti’d with enough raw garlic to hold off a platoon of vampires. I was happy just to fall hopelessly in love again.

          But simply worshiping at the shabby little shrine in Paris’s dowdy 3rd Arondissement wasn’t enough for David Liederman. He wanted to take home a doggy bag. Rash and obsessed -- knowing only too well he could easily make more money opening a dozen new cookie shops -- he and his wife, Susan, shuttered their six-year-old Manhattan Market to rip down its cool gray walls and lacquer everything red. Voila! Chez Louis, not a copy -- no one could hope to reproduce L’Ami Louis’s odd perfection -- but a kind of homage.

          Clearly, pure and classic L’Ami Louis just wouldn’t play in the cholesterol-and-fitness-obsessed eighties. So nine out of ten lunchers are ordering fish -- eafood salad, grilled rouget or roasted red snapper -- and asparagus with chervil vinaigrette. But after dark, New York is rediscovering meat-and-potatoes. And there is David in his embroidered chef’s whites, carving the fragrant baby legs of lamb, juicy roast chicken -- rosy and cooked clear through -- and giant steaks, enough to feed a family, everything wreathed in a sweet haze of herbs and garlic.

          The grand metamorphosis is not without its flaws -- the occasional overcooking of poussin or fish, a wimpy hollandaise, less-than-earth-stirring escargots, and a scattering of servers who act as if they just got off the bus after flunking out of junior college, eager and unformed. But at this moment I can’t think of a kitchen in town that does anything more wonderful to a potato than Chez Louis’s, with its glazed crunch of potato cake. The shoestring onion fries are sublime and the roast chicken is supernal. The shiitakes of summer do not have the wanton voluptuousness of cèpes in fall, and it would be nice if the whole roasted garlic cloves were soft so we could scrape them onto David’s wondrous crusty baguette. Agreed, the livers of upstate New York ducks, no matter how diligently overfed, will never match the richness of goose liver from Landes, but the foie gras here is delicious on toasted brioche.

          Two kinds of cherries and beautiful berries come from a neighbor’s farm in Fishkill. Soon, peaches from the same farmer, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, will be gracing hot fruit tarts. Sorbets can be intense -- the lemon seems especially soothing -- but for those not already numbed by excess, there is a deep, dark, compelling chocolate cake and oodles of David’s Cookies. For two to wallow like this -- foie gras included -- could cost $90 to $100, but even now, with the dream still in development, I doubt trenchermen will complain.

          There is nothing in New York quite like Chez Louis. A month ago, the Liedermans took their chef, Richie Gaimaro, with them to Paris to orient his taste buds. And Antoine Magnin, keeper of the flame at L’Ami Louis, shared the secret of his fuel -- oak floorboards. “My floor guy was thrilled to clean out his warehouse,” David reports. “It burns fast. It burns hot. No one else is as crazy as I am. I’m going to be here till we get this perfect.”

Chez Louis, 1016 Second Avenue, near 53rd Street (752-1400)

          Since you practically have to cash in a certificate of deposit to finance the free-range chicken at Jams -- where the kitchen is better than ever -- it’s positively philanthropic of Jonathan Waxman and Melvyn Master to have opened Hulot’s, a tiny canteen for penny-pinchers just a few blocks south on Lexington.

           Hulot’s chickens are admittedly underprivileged -- captives of modern technology -- but they can be crisp and juicy. Fish is respectfully seared, whether grilled or sautéed. Soups are often healthful -- lush with the green of spinach or escarole -- and homey, perhaps perfumed with basil. And the staff moves with a measure of grace.

           A third partner here, Gerard Oliver, is French. Maybe that explains the menu’s rigidly untranslated French. Yet the savor is undeniably American, the open kitchen, California. There will be no design awards here. A swath of chintz in the rear, rattan bistro chairs, pastoral pottery, a giant poster for Mr. Hulot’s Holiday cut into four pieces, each quarter framed and hung -- Hulot’s feet in the back, his head up front. That’s it.

           It took a while for the kitchen to gather confidence. At first, everything seemed pallid, too timidly seasoned. But well-heeled East Siders, lured by Hulot’s pedigree, seemed happy to find straightforward simplicity at comparatively gentle prices -- entrées at $16 to $20 seem modest next to Jams’. But when the liquor license comes through, it won’t be difficult for a hungry duo to spend $100 for dinner.

           Happily, the kitchen is stronger now. At a recent uncrowded lunch, tarragon-scented salmon is buttery perfection, and simple calf’s liver arrives nicely glazed and pink at the core. At dinner, a roasted red pepper, zucchini, and tomato salad cries for tastier tomatoes. But skillful grilling has truly graced the tuna -- it’s rare as requested, delicately charred but not toughened, brilliantly accented with herbs, tomato, and olive. Tender, tasty entrecote, crowned with marrow, sits in a good red-wine-touched glaze. The julienne-potato cake is crisp and delicious. And a browned and meaty slice of halibut comes with a splendid gratin of cabbage.

           There was always great chocolate mousse. And now the pastry seems to be improving, too. A seal of chocolate lurks under the crème pâtissière of blackberry tart. Veins of raspberry ennoble a rich chocolate terrine. And a fresh-apricot tart is perfection.

           Can a bistro serve goat-cheese stuffed potato skins? Must a bistro be French? My very proper French friend tells me his favorite bistro is Mariel Hemingway’s Sam’s. If “bistro” is essentially an attitude, La Bohême, eccentric and charming, definitely fits. I love everything about it except most of the entrees.

           The compact quarters are witty and warm, whimsy from the playful imagination of designer Sam Lopata: crazy-legged barstools, white stucco walls with abstract splashes of bright paint, fat, exposed ducts wrapped in sunshine yellow, Provençal pottery and printed napery, light bulbs on cords emerging, Medusa-like, from giant colanders -- and doors that opened to the street.

           She greets, she clears, she brings gifts of mini-pizzas, she flatters, she cajoles. She looks like Mildred Pierce in squared-off red gabardine and high heels. “She can only be French,” the Rocky Mountain Sybarite marvels. But she is Persian, Pari Dulac, wife of a French restaurateur, la patronne here. Her enthusiasm is contagious. “We have the best pizza in New York,” our waiter boasts. “And there are four little olives, so watch out for pits.” He returns with pepper-steeped olive oil from Provence. “Shall I? Just a small splash.” And it’s heavenly. Not even little rubber-band shrimp can spoil the thin-crust seafood pizza. But they are all wonderful -- ham-and artichoke-decked Bohémienne, salty Minetta with capers, olives, and anchovy, bizarre snail-strewn Gitane.

           The kitchen has more good moments -- fine string-bean salad, delicious soups, wonderful ratatouille, a tasty confit of duck, excellent chocolate mousse -- and as time goes on, the list seems to grow. The seafood casserole wavers -- now intense and delicious, now overly sedate. Liver with a glazed edge of sweetness could be less cooked, as requested. A flattened Cornish hen should be juicier. Steak au poivre is a challenge of chewiness. Nouilles bourguignonne is a disenchanting toss of noodles with snails. The cakes are fluffy and sweet, the mushy apple tart is a conspiracy of mediocrity.

           And yet La Bohême’s fey charm beckons. It respects the bistro price line -- pizzas $8 to $9.50, pastas and entrees $8.50 to $14.50.  With just a bit more reserve, Pari Dulac could be the Sirio Maccioni of Greenwich Village. And the pizzas are delicious.

           Chapiteau suffers a serious identity crisis. It looks as though someone wanted to hire Sam Lopata but, money being short, asked seven friends to take one wall each and do…whatever. How else could such a crazy quilt emerge? Name a design trend -- you’ve got it here. Brightly colored abstracts, pale-pastel murals, rec-room gray cement, half a pediment, columns without bottoms, columns with tops…and a plaster-of-Paris plant the door.

           The menu is contemporary French. That allows for ravioli with lobster and a faintly watery tuna carpaccio. But the chef has a few Oriental tics, too, wanting to marinate a perfectly good entrecote in soy sauce and serve it studded with sesame. Still, a special appetizer described as seafood cassoulet proves to be luscious fruits de mer in a rich cream sauce with no beans in sight. And the juicy boiled beef Jean Lafitte with its fine bouquet of root vegetables would definitely be worth a long trip downtown if someone would remember to season the broth.

           Wonderfully creamy old-fashioned celery rémoulade, delicately crumbed and sautéed disks of Montrachet in an olive-dotted salad, good medallions of veal, and the pleasant but odd sweetness of grilled lamb chops Provençale could make Chapiteau welcome in the neighborhood. Indeed, a recently lunch in almost total privacy (only one other table is occupied) is surprisingly good -- a lively seafood salad, a grilled guinea hen astonishing in its flavor and juiciness, and sautéed turbotin, simple and delicious. Perhaps Chapiteau will find its audience nearby -- even at $85 or more to feed two. But if I were investing $15 in cab fare, I’d taxi on to the Gotham Bar and Grill for Alfred Portale’s spectacular cooking, just a few blocks away.