The Washington Post
Chefs for Less
Where can you get great food cheap? At the bar
By Tom Sietsema
Sunday, February 2, 2003
Bar menu served Monday through Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. AE, DC, MC, V. No reservations at the bar. Smoking in bar area only. Metro: Farragut North. Bar menu prices: $4 to $10.95. Lunch at the bar with wine, tax and tip about $20 per person.
Even if you're not Dan Snyder, there are several ways, short of winning the lottery, to experience high-end restaurants. One is to save up and splurge once a year. Another involves visiting them at non-peak hours: Plenty of upscale dining rooms entice early birds with pre-theater or other menus that require ordering a meal before prime time. Still another tack is to go for a place that has a separate bar menu, which is why I recently found myself lunching at the counter at Galileo and nibbling into the night at Bistrot Lepic's new second-floor retreat.
Pigs insinuate themselves everywhere at the wine bar above Bistrot Lepic. They turn up on the list of cocktails, where a request for a "Bistrot Le Pig" brings you an eye-opener of rum, triple sec and three tropical fruit juices. Pigs decorate the orange-colored walls, too, in the form of cartoonlike paintings. Bite into the soothing onion tart, nestled on a fluff of greens, and you'll probably notice a hint of ... bacon. "It's a play on words," explains Bruno Fortin, the restaurant's chef-owner (Lepic, le pig — get it?).
What used to be a handsome private space where Fortin cooked for small dinner parties has evolved into a relaxed wine bar serving almost a dozen small plates of food, goofily called "appeteasers." Two or three of these pretty and generous snacks, most bearing a French stamp, add up to a satisfying meal for a bit less than you'd pay for a typical order of first course and entree in the main restaurant downstairs. This in a neighborhood short on comfortable watering holes.
Anything involving starch is apt to please, be it that fresh onion tart or tender braised veal cheeks tucked inside pillows of puff pastry and lapped with a vegetable-sweetened cream reduction. Silvery anchovies arranged over thin and buttery puff pastry are another winner. Soon the table is crowded with plates, as one good dish leads to another. Thin slices of pink foie gras terrine garnished with tiny roasted pears are followed by an equally refined lamb tagine. And small singed red peppers, fattened with a puree of salt cod and potato, vanish almost as quickly as they show up.
Still another plate combines shredded green papaya and diced mango, flecked with crab and bright with red fish roe, which provides a saline counterpoint to the subtle papaya and rich seafood. "It's not French, but it's refreshing, no?" asks Fortin. An occasional presence here, he makes an easy host, circulating around the small room to check up on his guests, some of whom are using this as a rest stop before dinner downstairs.
In contrast to the sunny dining room, which is Provencal in spirit, the wine bar, designed by Fortin's wife, Eva Claudio, marries East with West. Rattan couches, chairs in egg-cup shapes, low tables and a ceiling painted to look like a night sky all place the wine bar in some Indonesian resort. One of the few design nods to Paris is a dark mural depicting a late-night cafe scene. And, as you might expect, the wine list has a Gallic accent; the selection of whites, mostly chardonnays, is bested by the reds, which embrace a variety of regions (think Gigondas and Costieres de Nimes) and respected small producers.
One forkful of Roberto Donna's meatballs, shaped from pork and soft as custard, and I'm hooked on his new bar menu. Much as I might enjoy the Italian chef's truffles and flourishes in the dining room of Galileo, I like a bargain even better. Where else in town am I going to find a meal like this — three plump meatballs set on a soothing puddle of polenta, ringed with vibrant tomato sauce — for just under $7? Throw in a marble counter or a cushy sofa in a light-filled setting, and you've got a delicious deal.
There are plenty more excuses to show up for lunch. No one around makes a finer ribollita, Tuscany's classic soup of leftover bread cooked to a savory mush with vegetables, white beans and Parmesan, its surface brightened with fruity olive oil and sprigs of fresh basil. This is home cooking raised to glory. In a second dish, a winy minced beef, punched up with fresh rosemary, is draped over a swirl of feathery fettuccine. The tuna sandwich gets a makeover in Donna's blend of fish, capers, olives and more, poised between slices of very good ciabatta. And even people who swear they wouldn't eat stomach lining, no matter how it was prepared, end up returning for more veal tripe cooked in tangy tomato sauce. Chickpea soup, though, is a one-dimensional puree with an oil slick on top, and cheese- and spinach-topped pizza tastes under-rehearsed.
Each of these gently priced plates — there are 16 in all — could stand as a meal by itself. But I'd have a lot more fun eating them if the solemn soundtrack from "The Godfather" weren't playing in the background (even the staff jokes about it), and if the sullen bartender acted less like she just returned from a tax audit. (To their credit, the rest of the servers do a nice job of checking in on customers.) And for a restaurant with such a deep wine list, the handful of wines offered by the glass on the bar menu is unfortunate, even if they are only $5 each.
Yet for every little gripe, there are two or three green lights. Proceed with anticipation.
