December 25, 2008

• Bistro Montage

  Bistro Montage evolves

  July 2012

  In the restaurant world, one hears more about doomed locations than charmed ones. The southeast corner of 28th and Ingersoll is among the latter, having hosted one popular café after another for decades. People loved it when it was Jeff Pocock and Kim Samuelson’s deli Sheffield’s, then as Marlene Todd’s Corner Café, Gary Hines’ original Bistro Montage, and Enosh Kelley’s more French version of the same. Now Kelley thinks it’s time to for another makeover. 

  “We were the only French restaurant when we started. Now there’s three and it’s a tough economy. I was thinking of downscaling to more affordable prices anyway and then Ian came back to town,” he mused. 

  Ian Robertson is a talented young chef who worked for Kelley before moving on the culinary school in France, then putting in brief stints at Michelin starred kitchens in France, England and Chicago. He came home this year and Kelley wants to keep him here. So he initiated lunch service Tuesdays through Fridays with Robertson designing an inexpensive ($3.50 – $13) lunch menu. Then Kelley decided it was time to make the lunch menu available at dinner and a somewhat shortened dinner menu available at lunch. He’s even thinking about scrapping his linen tablecloths (which cost  over $150 a week to launder) as soon as he finds new table tops he likes.

  The place looked unchanged on my recent visits. Fresh flowers and tablecloths softened a blood red and black room. New creations on the menu included arugula salads made with roasted strawberries, papaya and chevre tossed with champagne vinaigrette. 

  

  Caesar and Cobb salads were traditional and a beet salad featured red and yellow roasted beets with crisp, warm chevre and pear butter, a balsamic reduction and sherry/walnut vinaigrette. Sandwiches were all served on focaccia, as if proclaiming a move out of France. One featured pulled chicken, tomato jam, Havarti and tarragon mayonnaise. 

  

  A “BLT” included excellent thick bacon, orange mustard and honey/ herb chevre. Crepes and soups were the stars of the lunch menu though. One light and gorgeous crepe was stuffed with tender chunks of steak, asparagus, grilled mushrooms, Brie and tarragon mayonnaise. 

  

  Another day I tried a chicken crepe stuffed with bacon and havarti. 

  

  Soups included a vegetarian English pea soup that tasted too fresh to be out at night, a tortilla soup in chicken stock, 

  

  and the bistro’s famous French onion soup, a sumptuous recipe that uses a stock of roasted duck and veal bones with caramelized onions, finished with sherry. 

  After the lunch and dinner menus merged, I made a lunch out appetizers and charcuterie. 

  

  A “seasonal” risotto delivered lovely pan seared scallops on rice reduced with wild mushrooms and plated with arugula. (Another risotto was reduced in sea urchin sauce, with tobikko and tomato concasse.) 

  

  Rillettes were meatier (less fatty) than most and a country terrine of pork was wrapped in bacon, reduced with raisins and pistachios, and served with classic Cumberland sauce. 

  

  A short dessert list featured a chocolate mousse covered in chopped pineapple and freshly whipped cream. Cheese service included six varieties – none French. Entrees on the new menu included steak frites, beef tenderloin, skate wing, trout, duck a l’orange, and roast chicken. The eclectic wine list ($25 – $2500) remained. A dozen wines were sold by the glass ($5-$13) and half a dozen Norman hard ciders were available. 

  Bottom line – Bistro Montage might not be as French as it used to be but it’s now open for lunch, more affordable ,and infused with youthful  energy. 

  Bistro Montage

  2724 Ingersoll Ave., 557-1924 

  Tues. – Fri. 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. – closing 

   

    

  Des Moines’ Best Restaurant in 2008

  They don’t advertise it, but Bistro Montage was Des Moines’ first French café. Owner-chef Enosh Kelley’s background and heart are steeped in the French classics, same as those of sous chef Nick Illingworth. How French is the place? The bar serves pastis, as well as absente and pernod. They cook rabbit in goose fat and make brown stock with ducks. They stuff quail with sweetbreads and wrap it in caul fat. Waiters are well informed and quite condescending. Don’t let any of that scare you. The place is down to the Iowa earth. Consider their bistro burger duo. Freshly ground beef shoulder is mixed with Niman Ranch pork belly, pan fried and served on home made (all bread is scratch-baked daily) poppy seed brioches, with white truffle mayonnaise, with Parmesan cheese fries and home made ketchup.

  

  Enosh Kelley and Nick Illingworth do all the cooking.

   

  Bistro Montage is better than ever now. Just as the other top chefs in town were opening their second, third, even fifth restaurants, Kelley sold his second cafe, to concentrate on this place. That has huge benefits for us. He’s always here and cozy 54-seat room ensures that all the cooking is done by the main talent – Kelley and Illingworth. There’s a rather new patio, restrooms have been remodeled and Kelley acquired some heirloom baking equipment from the very French Younkers Tea Room. That allowed him to create pressurized pastries and breads, with a denser crumb that suits his layered tortes. But more about that after dinner.

  A complimentary amuses-bouche of sweetbreads on fresh herbs set my mouth up for a tomato tart — a puff pastry topped with deeply herbed tomatoes and kalamata tapanade, with greens and vinaigrette. Duck liver pate and pork terrine, wrapped in bacon, were served with good mustard and cornichons, plus Cumberland sauce, a currant based wonder that should accompany all fatty and game dishes. Appetizer cheeses included Humboldt Fog goat cheese, Fourme d’Ambert blue, Beemster and aged Gouda, a selection that could have used more subtlety. That sharp blue cheese also appeared in a superb roasted beet salad, with sliced pears and a sherry walnut vinaigrette, the house dressing. (Sherry vinegar is “in” and balsamic is “out” according to trendy gourmets.) Montage’s chicken salad got the biggest French makeover — chicken quenelles were heavily steeped in fresh rosemary and served with roasted fennel and grapes and dressed in walnut vinaigrette.

  Skate wing has long been one of Kelley’s signatures. This is an odd fish far more popular in Europe than North America or Asia, with soft bones and the flavor of scallops. It was pan fried here, and a bit over cooked. Steak frites were pan seared and served with soggy sautéed spinach and wonderful double-fried potatoes (only Dish’s compare). Bouillabaisse provided a sublime broth (Kelley said his secret is to go heavy on halibut bones) clearly saffron and fennel-rich and accompanied with the essential rouille (tomato mayo) and crostini. Monkfish and grouper shared its divine pond with the usual shellfish suspects, plus potatoes tournee (marinated in saffron broth). How often do you find those in Iowa?

  My favorite entrée was duck seared fatty side down and served perfectly rare with a potato pave (layers of sweet potato and white potato) that could shame local hash browns into storm cellars. The best looking dish was a rack of lamb pan roasted and served with a bean medley that included fava, cranberry and marrow beans, plus the compulsory haricot verts.

  All the new baking paraphernalia, including stencils, make dessert courses a delightful work in progress. Kelley’s signature daquoise is hard to resist, but I sampled several new homemade ice creams, ranging from a too heavy goat cheese to a fabulous light berry. Profiteroles (cream puffs) were flaky enough to let me leave with the Gallic delusion that I had eaten lightly.

  Bottom line – this was my choice as the best restaurant in Central Iowa in 2008. It kept its focus while others were losing their’s. The chefs introduced more fine new dishes than any other cafe did this year.  Kelley has no peer locally as a restaurant pastry chef.

  June 2009 Update

  Stopped in for a piece I was writing about bargains in fine dining in Des Moines. Here’s what I had on a $27 special, plus no corkage fees on Thursday, or no corkage on a second bottle any night.

  Bistro Montage has both a $20 and a $27 prix fixe menu, each evening. I opted for the $27 menu and chose a Caesar salad

  over their divine French onion soup because of the weather. The latter is a civic treasure, made with duck and veal stock and topped with fine Gruyere. My Caesar was superb with its white anchovies. The café offered a comp plate of rabbit

  terrine

  

  that night, with a current tinged mustard and some ravioli cheese from Reichardt’s Dairy Aire. Staff were touting the chicken Roulade

  and I almost always listen. Great choice – Organic breasts had been brined and stuffed with house made sausage of the legs and thighs, served with new potatoes, nutty red rice, green beans and babby tomatoes. I did not regret passing on the Basque stew, even when I saw lovely little baby octopi in a bowl being served nearby.

  

  (The $20 option another night delivered this house cured yellowfin nicoise salad as an entree.) I chose a crème briulee over home made Farmers market strawberry ice cream – because Bistro Montage always perfectly executes this much abused dish.

  Mine was still warm on top and crackled when struck with the fork.

   

   

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