Mikette

I was a commuter to the small residential college I attended, a visitor, essentially, to a village where everyone already knew one another. The commute was long, so I often spent long hours on campus between classes. Occasionally, as a treat, I’d go to a nearby restaurant, where I’d order a spinach salad and French onion soup.

I would sit alone, waiting quietly for my food, unsure of where to look or how to fold my hands, pretending it was absolutely natural for me to be there alone. I would eat slowly, carefully, willing the slippery onions not to slide off my spoon onto my lap, or the long strings of gooey cheese to dangle out the corner of my mouth. I could only hope no flecks of spinach became wedged between my teeth.

Still, I loved the beefy broth, the toasted croutons, the pungent cheese, the metallic taste of the spinach. To me, they epitomized delicious and stylishly sophisticated dining. I even once persuaded my dad to meet me at the restaurant for lunch–only to have him rather scornfully declare that neither soup nor salad was very good. He was–particularly then–a rather simple foods kind of guy.

When I started cooking seriously, I made Julia Child’s French onion soup, starting with the slow browning of meaty bones for broth, fortifying it with generous splashes of booze, and ending up with a warm, satisfying bowl that tasted exactly like the restaurant’s. I haven’t eaten it much since. But when friends learned I was reviewing Mikette, Adam Baru’s French-style bistro in the Courtyard Shops on Plymouth Rd., they told me its version of my old favorite was delicious.

Mikette is Baru’s latest venture, after Mani Osteria and Isalita. (The waitress chuckled, without reply, when I jokingly asked her what country we might all be visiting next if Baru opens a fourth restaurant.) One night this fall my husband and I, sitting at Mikette’s marble bar, ordered the French onion soup.

The bowl delivered pure nostalgia, exactly what I remembered from my youth. Yet it didn’t thrill me. The fault, I think, was not in the execution but in my own changing tastes–I simply don’t love French onion soup anymore. Those that do, though, will be quite happy slurping a bowl at Mikette, particularly during this winter season.

What did I love about Mikette? To begin with, the design. Baru has done a splendid job renovating strip mall blandness into a stylized suggestion of a French bistro, not cleaving so tightly to the stereotype as to be cutesy or kitschy but close enough to be cozy and warm. Rather than hanging from the walls, vintage posters act as a partial ceiling below the exposed steel joists. Framed photos include iconic Gallic scenes alongside shots of coiffed and bedazzled French poodles. Rough-sawn wood floors, brick walls, red banquettes, and mismatched light fixtures add to the inviting set. The heated red canopy Baru added to the front of the building is reminiscent of those lining the boulevards of Paris, adding space and seats to small bistros. Mikette’s does the same, as does the patio wedged next to the restaurant’s west side; hidden from Plymouth Rd., it was a surprisingly pleasant place to eat dinner in early fall.

Service was experienced and well trained. Baru has brought over seasoned servers from his older restaurants, but even newer ones were well informed, knowledgeable, efficient, and friendly. As to be expected, the alcohol menu highlights French options but doesn’t neglect to offer a few other choices; the wine list, particularly, though not extensive, has many interesting gems.

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Which leads us, finally, back to Mikette’s food. It’s not all perfect but often quite good, with dishes we could happily eat any night of the week.

Late one evening, sitting at a secluded high-top near the edge of the bar, we started with gougeres, warm popovers, often served as an hors d’oeuvre and usually flavored with Gruyere but here with Parmesan and black pepper. Expecting a plate of five or six miniature puffs, I was surprised to receive two decadent, baseball-sized orbs veiled in a gossamer dusting of cheese. The outside lightly crispy, the inside soft, silky, and luxurious, they were wonderful, especially with the bottle of rose we were drinking. Next came haricots verts, thin green beans too crunchy from too little cooking but nicely accented with hazelnuts and red onion slices. Better were charred whole beets, one gold, one purple, roasted in their skins and then lightly smashed, dressed with a sharp, herby salsa verde and a slick of insipid boursin creme. Although beets and goat cheese have become a cliche, here I think the more pungent cheese would have been a better counterpoint to the vegetable’s earthiness.

Finally, the waitress delivered the Nemo Plateau. French bistros often feature platters–plateaux–of raw and cooked seafood, usually on a bed of ice and adorned with various sauces for dipping and pouring. Mikette follows suit with two sizes. The Nemo is the smaller and, augmented with a couple of salads or sides, is sufficient as dinner for two. We had six lovely, briny East Coast oysters (oddly, Mikette doesn’t name them), chilled jumbo shrimp, and Jonah crab claws (both disappointingly dry and tasteless), an incredibly delicious if tiny bit of scallop ceviche, and an equally impressive few inches of king crab leg, slathered with a zesty ginger remoulade. Dessert finished us off, literally and figuratively–a silky creme brulee, two dry lemon madeleines, and an overly sweet if massive serving of raspberry-chocolate sorbet. We left the restaurant after closing, comfortable and happy.

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A week or so later, during another dinner, we tried that fondly remembered French onion soup, along with a ramekin of escargots, done in a modern fashion. We both found the little guys luscious, drowning, along with some mushrooms, in juices heavily flavored with hazelnut butter and Chartreuse liqueur. We reordered dishes we had eaten with friends earlier in the season–beef bourguignonne made with short ribs and roast chicken Provencal on a bed of shoestring fries. The succulent stew was still richly satisfying, though it needs to be served with many more egg noodles in a wide, shallow bowl–not a deep ramekin–for the sauce to be properly savored and appreciated. (The hunk of bread that is served isn’t what either of us wanted.) The chicken, which earlier had been without peer, was this time just okay, under-seasoned and under-sauced.

The first time we ate that chicken, four of us shared the plate. It came out, a half bird, mostly boned, juicy, herby, buttery, surrounded by fries that had soaked up the copious juices. We devoured that chicken, even after already having finished scallop ceviche and escargot, snappy Moroccan meatballs, an eggplant tagine that wasn’t really a braise but was nicely done nonetheless, and a ridiculously enormous foie parfait–a satiny, buttery spread of liver pate served in an ice cream sundae glass. And we still had more to come–a garlicky shrimp, beef bourguignonne, and a disappointing Lyonnaise salad, overly dressed with vinaigrette and with a paltry sprinkling of roasted potatoes.

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What did I not love about Mikette? That Baru persists with the concept of small, shared plates, with dishes coming out when the kitchen finishes them, not necessarily when you want them. When the menu is mostly street food (Isalita) or light fare (Mani Osteria), this makes sense, but Mikette’s menu is fairly traditional, with dishes that suggest appetizers and entrees, no matter what the headings say. Although it requires greater discipline for the line cooks to time dishes to come out in unison and in courses, restaurant kitchens have done so for decades; I’m not sure why they still can’t. Nor does everyone want to share her dinner–especially when it’s a burger or a roast chicken or steak frites. After our first visit I did insist that dishes come out in a certain order, but I’m not sure that will always work, especially for larger tables.

But really, I’m quite pleased to finally have a neighborhood restaurant on our side of town, one with good food and drink, a welcoming haven for lone diners and families, for weeknights and nights of celebration. We have both in Mikette.

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Mikette Bistro and Bar

mikettea2.com

Raw bar $2-$60; appetizers, soups, salads $5-$15; large plates $10-$22

Tues.-Sat. 4:30-10 p.m., Sun 4:30-9 p.m. Closed Mon.

Wheelchair accessible