For a certain subset of wistful, French-leaning gourmands, bistro remains one of the most durable, comforting words in the restaurant language. It conjures images of convivial carriage-house quarters with steamy windowpanes and country stews cooked in tiny backroom kitchens. At a spare little space down on Hudson Street, two seasoned—and, I’m guessing, slightly wistful—restaurant veterans, Maryann Terillo (formerly of Jarnac) and Elisa Sarno (formerly of Babbo), are attempting to re-create this old world once again. They call their restaurant Bistro de la Gare, after Terillo’s vanished West Village café where they worked together in the eighties. Their narrow railroad space has fifteen tables and a five-seat bar where you can chill bottles of wine brought in from the liquor store around the corner (the restaurant’s currently BYOB, but the wine-and-beer license should arrive in a few weeks). There are familiar, earthy preparations on the menu, like duck rillettes, and an appropriately bulky cassoulet served in an earthen crock as heavy and round as a cannonball.
We’ve seen this show many times before, of course, and like a classic, old opera, its pleasure isn’t in the content necessarily. It is in the neighborly scale, the ritualized pace of the proceedings, and, if you’re lucky, the modest price of the show. This bistro (the menu’s stated theme is “Mediterranean,” which means a French-bistro format mingled with hints of Italy) isn’t exactly cheap, however. On one of my early visits, $9 bought a small tuft of mesclun salad, and for $3 more you could get a smattering of seafood (mussels, ribbons of squid, a shrimp or two) thrown into a tangle of frisée. The duck rillettes ($10) come in a thimble-size cup but are redeemed by their unctuous, country- style flavor. So were the fat, fresh scallops ($14 for two), which the kitchen sears, then tosses with sherry vinegar and shreds of black garlic, and perches atop a little mountain of fava beans.
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