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Review: Despite ownership change, Le Petit Bistro a solid option for French food

 
Dessert choices include creme brulee, which also can be ordered as part of a trio with chocolate mousse and tiny profiteroles.
Dessert choices include creme brulee, which also can be ordered as part of a trio with chocolate mousse and tiny profiteroles.
Published June 8, 2015

BELLEAIR BLUFFS

Le Bouchon Bistro chugged along for years, one of the only purveyors in Belleair Bluffs of traditional French brasserie fare. Things got a little shaky in 2013 and 2014 and it went through two rapid changes of hands, renamed Le Petit Bistro during that process. Then, Colette Pommel, her husband Bernard Jacob and their son Nicolas Denis arrived at the end of December from Avignon, France, and bought the place.

In the transition, the menu stayed fairly similar: They kept the foie gras, the boeuf bourguignon, the Burgundian escargots with the flurry of parsley and sultry garlic oomph. And they kept the name, a risky move when a restaurant has gone through a widely acknowledged dip in quality.

They've thought better of that decision and will debut later this month as Chez Colette's French Bistro. But as a preview of what's to come, a couple of recent visits assured me that Pommel and crew have what it takes to return this beloved neighborhood spot to its former status.

A daily board of specials veers a bit from France (fresh fish fillets with Asian-inflected coconut milk sauces and such), but the anchors are more traditional. Begin with a generous green salad topped by rusks of bread with warm rounds of chevre on top, the salad's sweet-tart vinaigrette a perfect foil for the tangy cheese ($8.50). And if the weather is inclement, a bowl of French onion soup ($7.50) hits all the right notes, the broth neither too salty nor too sweet, its cap of cheese causing those cat's-cradle threads before succumbing to your spoon. (As always, the most satisfying bites are the cheesy bits glued to the edge of the crock.)

Cheese and charcuterie boards are homespun and don't reach the heights of the new spate of heavy hitters (Annata, Haven), the cheeses pleasant but a bit pedestrian. Instead, I'd suggest sharing a crepe as an appetizer or middle course: The Le Paris is a sinful amalgam of chicken, caramelized onion, blue cheese sauce and soft potato ($16), whereas Le Bordelaise ($15) is a more health-minded but zesty assemblage of snappy green beans, potato and tomato with a basil garlic sauce accented with Parmesan, all tucked into textbook crepe squares with a little side salad.

Jacob and Denis, the team in the kitchen, have a way with braises, whether that's a quicker chicken Normandie ($19.50), the plush meat swaddled in a mustard-tinged cream sauce with mushrooms, accompanied by rice and green beans (alright, three green beans); or a low-and-slow duck leg confit served with dynamite fried potatoes Sardalaise (also cooked in duck fat; $21). But the steak frites options proved tempting as well, the black pepper-crusted filet juicy and tender, towered over by a cone of crisp, greaseless fries ($29) — nothing you haven't seen before, but hey, this kind of familiarity hardly breeds contempt.

Same goes for the desserts, most effectively sampled as a trio ($10) of creme brulee (a little firm, but great snap to the top), tiny profiteroles and a ramekin of velvety chocolate mousse. The all-French wine menu is a short greatest-hits list, but well priced, and service in the comfortably appointed dining room finds a nice balance of familiarity and solicitousness. All told, the offerings may only be a "petite" bit different under its new ownership, but things at Colette's are looking up.

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Contact Laura Reiley at lreiley@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2293. Follow @lreiley on Twitter. She dines anonymously and unannounced; the Times pays all expenses.