Tom Sietsema Dining
★ ★ (Good/Excellent)
Bistro Provence 4933 Fairmont Ave., Bethesda. 301-656-7373. bistroprovence. org.
OPen: Lunch daily 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner Sunday through Thursday 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5:30 to 10 p.m. Major credit cards. Parking lot nearby.
MetrO: Bethesda.
Prices: Lunch appetizers $6.95- $11.50, entrees $12-$22; dinner appetizers $8.50- $24, entrees $19.50-$36.
sOund check:
80 decibels/ extremely loud.
the List Bistro Provence, the chef’s eighth area eatery in 30 years, follows Le Paradou, Le Relais, El Catalan, Provence, Coco Loco, Yannick’s and Le Pavillon.
tom sietsema chats live at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays. Join him and find videos, blog posts and more at washingtonpost. com/
tomsietsema.
Bistro Provence’s grilled shrimp appetizer beckons.
A bit of France A
lands in Bethesda Cam’s bistro brightens the dining scene
fter far too long, there’s a fresh reason to book a table in Bethesda: Bistro Provence. Its outdoor patio is one of the area’s
loveliest. The restaurant’s long list of specials sends you on the trip to France you can only
fantasize about right now. Best of all, the April debut of Bistro Provence marks the return of one of the mid-Atlantic’s best chefs, Yannick Cam. His five-year run at the sumptuous (and sometimes haughty) Le Paradou in Washington ended a year ago, a victim of the sour economy. His new endeavor — set so far back from the street it almost feels like a secret — extends the trend toward ever-more-casual restaurants from great chefs, although Bistro Provence still dresses its tables with linens. Eating Cam’s beautiful food in his new lair is like watching
Streep or De Niro onscreen. Each can move audiences with quietly astonishing performances. In the chef’s case, that translates to carefully pared vegetables, sauces that bring Michelin to mind and the sort of deft touches that separate masters from so many “Top Chef” wannabes. To see what I mean, order the grilled shrimp appetizer, napped with a subtle sauce of celery and pear, and dusted with bacon, or a fetching ode to the season that brings together tender clams, creamy morels, verdant asparagus and slender penne. One of the most seductive seviches anywhere right now is the 61-year-old chef ’s refined and refreshing version of dewy,
30 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | august 1, 2010
thinly cut scallops partnered with grapefruit and sprinkled with diced red onion and coriander. The more you eat of these dishes, the more you don’t want them to end. In the opening weeks, chaos
defined the service. But time and new management have smoothed out some of the staff ’s wrinkles. Chances are excellent, in other words, that you will get the baby clams stuffed with spinach and walnuts you ordered rather than someone else’s dish. Chances are also good that you’ll swoon over the juicy, crunchy and herb-sweetened appetizer. If you close your eyes and
taste the duck confit, you’ll swear you’re sitting in a Parisian locale rather than in downtown Bethesda. The skin shatters with a light crackle, giving way to meaty and succulent bird, its bed of sauteed potatoes sweetened with soft onions every bit as heady as the centerpiece. Cam’s simpler dishes are just as transporting. High and light on the plate, a pale green
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SCOTT SUCHMAN
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