Simple Pleasures

Eating at a French restaurant can be an intimidating proposition, what with all those fancy names and the de rigueur attention to fine-dining etiquette. It doesn’t have to be that stuffy way, the people at Bistro Baron say. And even the little ones can heed Marie Antoinette’s advice by having their cake and eating it, too. Bruce Emond reports.

For some newbies to Jakarta, including French expatriates, it’s confounding that the French dishes found in these parts are mostly limited to heavy-sauced mainstays served in very elegant surroundings (even if that favorite chicken-and-mushroom croissant doesn’t count). Consider the buttoned-down Taman Sari at the former Hilton Hotel (now the Sultan), or the long-departed Margaux at the Shangri-La, with its famous free-flow champagne Sunday brunch.

Besides the Café de Paris and a couple of other restaurants, there have been few places open to the rest of us interested in enjoying a taste of France but wary of crossing that imagined Marginot line of full-on fine-dining finery and attendant expense.

Bistro Baron wants to offer something on the lighter side. Despite its location in one of Jakarta’s oldest and most exclusive shopping centers, it’s seeking to stay firmly in the tradition of the bistros to be found throughout France: welcoming, homey, with tasty, rustic fare and, importantly, sans that staid attitude.

Chef Antoine Maillet emphasizes that it’s not your granddaddy’s idea of a French restaurant in Jakarta, circa 1980.

“That can be scary, almost like going to a wedding. We’re not going to be one of those places where you go in, sit down and are always thinking about whether your elbows are on the table,” he says with a smile, glancing over at my own violation of good-mannered dining decorum that, back in the day, would have had my parents sending daggers of disapproval across the table.

Opened in February, Bistro Baron has a powerhouse management team behind it, the same folks who conceptualized some of Jakarta’s most elegant function houses (Rumah Imam Bonjol and Rumah Kartanegara) and also the Italian premier sandwich eatery Capocaccia at Pacific Place.

Owner Anna Bambang was inspired by the bistros she and her family visited during trips to Paris and Europe. She hired Singapore-based celebrity chef Emmanuel Stroobant to help conceptualize the menu for Bistro Baron, which led to the appointment of Maillet, formerly the head chef at Stroobant’s Brussel Sprouts restaurant and previously a chef de partie at St. Pierre, and who has lived in Singapore and Malaysia.

Mrs. Bambang reportedly spent six months trying the different dishes to determine if they were fit to be served. Compared to the often bulky restaurant menus that seemingly try to offer a little bit of everything for every palate (and in the process fail to satisfy most), Bistro Baron’s menu is refreshingly streamlined and focuses on the staples of bistro dining. At the opening of the restaurant, Stroobant emphasized that while “French food is often synonymous with fine dining in this part of the world … some of the most popular French dishes are simple with a homemade feel”.

Appetizers include a choice of salads, soups (among them homemade onion soup with toast au gratin Gruyère), a selection of foie gras, rillettes and smoked duck, steak tartare, and, the dish I tried, a melt-in-the-mouth onion tart, the sprinklings of tangy goat cheese ideally complimenting a salad of peppery rocket leaves (Rp 75,000).

For mains, there’s pasta, fish (dory and snapper), the popular roast half chicken with sautéed asparagus and watercress, duck confit, steak frites and a kilogram of 200-day grain-fed Black Angus beef rib, recommended for two to four diners.

I chose the croque-monsieur, consisting of white ham, Gruyère cheese and Mornay sauce between two slices of farm-fresh rustic bread (Rp 75,000), served with a heaping mound of rocket greens. Lightly toasted and delicious, I can say honestly that this was probably the best version of the sandwich I’ve ever tasted (there’s also a roast chicken sandwich, served with mushrooms and Gruyère).

“We want to have the traditional and classic French food that you would find at a bistro in Paris, or Marseille or Bordeaux,” says Maillet, who grew up in many regions of his homeland. “We have dishes from all over France.”

The dishes have been adapted slightly for local conditions without detracting from the genuineness of their flavors, he adds, or else diners may find themselves heading straight for a nap.

“We have reduced the starch, because in Asia everything is eaten with rice or noodles. We keep the starch, reduce its quantity and substitute more vegetables.”

Decked out with deep-blue paneling and wooden floors, the restaurant is a comfortable although not overly large L-shaped space. There’s an outside terrace for diners who may want to smoke. The main interior dining section has choice views of the hive of activity in the open kitchen, which leads on to another narrow, intimate dining area.

Outside is another open area of tables and chairs located inside the shopping center, ideal for a coffee and sandwich, or, as on one recent weekday afternoon, the site of a meeting of young executives, sipping coffee, laptops open, ideas being bandied about as the troop of youngish, attractive waitstaff moved among them, in aprons and white shirts, not a single stiff bowtie among them.

“I wanted the interior to convey a sense of warmth and familiarity that would put guests at ease right away,” Mrs. Bambang said during the opening.

That welcome policy also extends to children. A kids’ menu offers half-portion servings and there are plans to have a children’s corner to keep the little ones occupied during a day out with their parents.

Chef Maillet’s personal seating recommendation is for the tables to have a view of the kitchen, all the better to witness the sometimes frenzied goings-on of his team at work. Although among the youngest of the chefs at only 30, he refers to his crew as his “children”, sometimes needing to be brought into line and called upon to make sure everything is going smoothly.

“When everything is done, we are all friends again,” he says.

BISTRO BARON
Plaza Indonesia Extension
Level 1, Unit E20-21
Jl. Thamrin, Central Jakarta
Tel. +62 21 2992 3505
www.bistrobaron.com

Short Orders

Foie gras, available at Bistro Baron, has become a politically charged animal rights issue in some countries, and banned in restaurants in major cities like Chicago. Chef Antoine Maillet acknowledges the controversy about the fattened duck’s liver, but argues it’s part of a tradition dating back many centuries. He also notes there has been abuse of the tradition in recent years. “In some countries, it’s a nightmare, like chickens kept in boxes. They feed the ducks too much, and that’s bad,” he says. Unlike the ducks, the argument could go, nobody is force-feeding it to the diners.

Desserts, including caramelized apple tart, crème brûlée and chocolate mousse, are part of the menu. “I’m not a pastry chef, but you’ll find the classic desserts that you’d find in any bistro in the world,” Maillet says.
Seven is a lucky number in many cultures, and in keeping the menu to a manageable size, the bistro has focused on having seven each of appetizers, mains and desserts. That doesn’t mean you have to eat seven courses, though.

The drinks menu includes some famous French refreshers from Diabolo (Monin and Sprite), Lait-Fraise (Monin and milk), Liegeois (orange and grenadine) and Orangina. Also shakes, smoothies, slushes, beers and coffees; you also get to select the intensity for your espresso.

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