Kirkland Bistro Knows Food, Not Name, Matters

Restaurant review

XXX Bistro Provencal, 212 Central Way, Kirkland. ($$) French cuisine. Entrees $12.95 to $18.95. Dinner 5:30 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; until 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday. Full bar. Major credit cards. Access for disabled. Nonsmoking area. Reservations and catering: 827-3300. -------------------------------------------------------------------

Bistro Provencal turns 21 next month - a coming of age for this downtown Kirkland restaurant nurtured through its youth in the mature and skillful hands of owner/chef Philippe Gayte.

Until a few months ago, it was named Le Provencal. Gayte, who spent much of his childhood in his father's Rhone Valley restaurant, observed with bemusement as eateries throughout America went bonkers over bistros a few years ago, capitalizing in financially tight times by using a name synonymous with inexpensive comfort food. He knew that a true bistro isn't a large, pricey cheeseburger-and-pizza place with a half-dozen French words on the menu. To him, it's a small restaurant where diners sit close to each other, where food is affordable and where there's often a nightly specialty that pleases regular customers. In a nutshell, it's everything he had created.

The name change has made this oldest French restaurant continuously operating at a single location in the Puget Sound area more user friendly, attracting customers who had perceived it as more formal and more expensive than reality.

The loyalty of customers (Gayte says 80 percent of his business is repeat) was tested during two visits last week. They braved icy streets and bitter gusts to sit within view of the fireplace at this Eastside version of a French country inn, and to warm themselves with one of the ultimate comfort foods, Gayte's masterful onion soup.

One can dine very well here by ordering a main course and a glass of wine. I chose the Steak au Poivre, Comme mon Pere ($15.95), a fitting tribute to the culinary skills of the owner's late father. The tender New York steak was blanketed with a pepper sauce almost the color of chocolate, prepared with reductions of shallots, white wine, butter, veal stock and green peppercorns.

Handled with care

In this age of speed cooking, it's a joy to take time out to savor the beauty of a French sauce crafted with care and patience.

My wife chose the rack of lamb ($18.95). The tender morsels, roasted with herbs and carved from the bone at table, actually are from the saddle portion of the lamb.

Each entree was wreathed with vegetables, cooked to perfection and arranged like clockwork - sauteed mushrooms, green beans, rectangle of scalloped potatoes, cauliflower floret and carrot puree, garnished with sprigs of fresh thyme.

A bottle of new-harvest Jeffelin Beaujolais Nouveau ($17), a shared slice of chocolate and raspberry cake with a dollop of Gayte's ambrosial chocolate mousse on the side, and we were two happy bistro campers, fortified for the cold trek home.

The steak, the lamb and another entree, chicken sauteed with tomato sauce, all have been on the menu since day one. Other choices include duck with boysenberries, seafood casserole, and - ideal for the undecided - medallions of veal, lamb and pork served with three sauces.

Value meal

During our next visit, my wife ordered the Special Bistro Menu ($19.50) with a choice of soup or pate, a salad, a choice of three entrees (she opted for Daube Avignonnaise, a flavor-rich beef casserole served with rice), and a choice of three desserts. This is an excellent value.

I enjoyed the prix fixe Menu Gastronomie ($32.50). A five-course education in good French fare, it was highlighted by the entree of pheasant, tender slivers of breast meat served with a white champagne sauce, the dark meat with red-wine sauce. And for dessert, Floating Island from the pastry cart.

Gayte plans to add another bistro menu selection, midpriced at about $25, early next year.

Few quibbles

Service was smooth and professional. The blue-and-white checkered tablecloths lend charm. Only a few quibbles, none major enough to discourage return visits: French rolls were airy and a bit cottony. An ordinary apple tart. Coffee was lukewarm one evening. When this was mentioned to our server, it was promptly replaced - with a second cup of lukewarm coffee. Most of the background music was pleasant, but I'd take a sharp French chef's knife to the New Age CD punctuated by waves crashing against a shoreline. Hardly comforting sounds in this otherwise cozy bistro during a freezing evening.Times staff reviewers make visits to restaurants anonymously and unannounced. They pay in full for all food, wines and services. When they interview members of the restaurants' management and staff, they do so only after the meals and the services have been appraised. They do not accept invitations to evaluate restaurants.