Reviews

Restaurant review: A french coup
Bistro chef follows his heart, changing his menu to reflect his background -- with great success
By Mike Dunne - Bee Restaurant Critic

Christophe Ehrhart had moved 13 times during his culinary career, including stops in Strasbourg, France; Washington, D.C.; Nova Scotia; San Francisco; and Toronto.

Nearly four years ago, as executive chef, he opened Austin's Steakhouse in Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln. When he left Thunder Valley last fall, his wife said she'd had enough with the moves. Fine, said Ehrhart. As does the rest of the family, he rather likes their home in Loomis.

Besides, he was tired of corporate cookery. He wanted to try something more personal and fun. He wanted his own small restaurant.

Coincidentally, the suburban Roseville restaurant Bella Italia Bistro & Wine Bar was available. In September, he bought it, then did something curious: He retained the restaurant's Italian format rather than switch to the traditional French cookery in which he had trained and long practiced.

"I was told to be careful, that Bella Italia had a clientele, that the holidays were coming, that I should introduce the French concept slowly," Ehrhart says.

On Valentine's Day, however, he offered guests a special French menu. Patrons took to it so enthusiastically that a week later he transformed Bella Italia into Bistro La Petite France.

Today, it's one of few restaurants in the Sacramento region where diners can find such classic French dishes as coquille St. Jacques, filet de sole almandine, coq au vin and escargot.

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's new president, is vowing to buff up his country's tarnished glory and restore at least some of the old élan. In way-off Roseville, Sarkozy looks to have a kindred spirit in Christophe Ehrhart, though Ehrhart hasn't yet abandoned entirely the restaurant's Italian heritage. Guests are greeted with a rustic white bread and a pasty dip of olive oil, balsamico and grated Parmigiano, both more Italian than French.

Beyond that, however, Ehrhart's approach is to present a personal and grounded tribute to the richness and refinement of traditional French cooking. His menu runs most strongly to the heartier dishes of the French repertoire, with several selections more fitting for fall and winter than spring and summer, though he says he will be lightening up the choices as the weather warms.

But anyone hungering for a dark and deeply saturating version of coq au vin won't be let down by Ehrhart's juicy interpretation, so popular early on that it isn't likely to disappear, regardless of the season ($19.95).

While Ehrhart takes a more formal than casual approach to the French classics, he isn't above tweaking traditionalism with an occasional playful fillip. The coq au vin, for one, not only was topped with buttery croutons but was accompanied by Ehrhart's signature Alsatian spaetzle, tiny poached dumplings of flour and egg seasoned with salt and butter. The spaetzle, incidentally, is listed as "flour dumplings" among the optional side dishes, which carry an extra charge, $5.50 for the spaetzle.

Similarly, Ehrhart brightens his dense, moist and satiny housemade terrine of pork and wild mushrooms with a quivering spoonful of zinfandel jelly, not something likely to be found in a Parisian bistro ($9.95).

As indicated by the terrine, among other selections, Ehrhart loves the earthiness and the range of textures that mushrooms can bring to a dish. A veritable lug box of golden trumpets bloomed across two low, delicate and marvelously tender medallions of veal ($21.95).

But regardless of whether a dish includes mushrooms, the telling feature of Ehrhart's cookery is his emphasis on lusty flavors and sensuous textures. The lobster sauce of his scallop gratin was luxurious, buttery and herbal -- as well as a touch salty -- while the three plump scallops themselves were hot, fresh and silken ($21.95).

A special presented duck two ways ($28.95). A rich and shiny red-wine demi-glace added a fitting note of fruit to three thick and rosy slices of smoked Muscovy duck breast, while a whole leg of duck confit yielded delicious dark meat enriched with fat and skin. The dish also included fat spears of briefly steamed asparagus and a traditionally robust potato gratin.

Even Ehrhart's starters are unusually hefty, with the possible exception of his cream of tomato and basil soup, a glimpse of summer peeking from under a flaky and buttery crown of golden pastry ($7.95).

Other first courses included fillets of applewood-smoked trout so rich and so generous in portion that they ought to be shared by two to four diners ($10.95), and the "bistro salad," a vigorous toss of assorted greens, grape tomatoes, blue cheese and walnuts dressed with a Dijon-mustard vinaigrette, big enough for an entree ($7.95).

The substantial servings that characterize dining at Bistro La Petite France continue through dessert, where the selection lately included a concentrated and buttery upside-down apricot tart fat with fruit that Ehrhart put up last summer with apricots off his own tree ($7.95); a cylindrical mousse striated with several shades of chocolate, accompanied with boysenberries and strawberries ($8.95); and a huge bowl of fresh local strawberries drizzled with balsamico ($7.95).

The bistro's wine list consists largely of familiar domestic corporate brands. While the range is adequate for the style of food, more Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhone would be in order for such a fiercely French restaurant, and they are coming, assures Ehrhart.

The friendly and relaxed servers were debonair without being distant, showing a proprietary concern that leaves guests feeling their every request will be honored without fuss.

Perched in a far corner of a shopping plaza, Bistro La Petite France occupies a simple, blocky space with little personality, though not without color. The paint scheme runs to an appropriate Dijon mustard, perky yellow flowers are planted out front, and on each of our visits so was a happy yellow Mini Cooper.

A large Provençal landscape, bracketed with shutters, occupies much of one wall, while ceramic chickens here and there and the requisite model of the Eiffel Tower remind guests that the bistro no longer is Italian but decidedly and proudly French.