Bistro Bijoux: Still Sparkling After All These Years
9100 Baytowne Blvd., Village of Baytowne Wharf, Sandestin, (850) 622-0760

Hours: Open daily at 5 p.m.
Reservations: Accepted
Children's menu: Yes
Dress: Casual

Food
Service
Atmosphere
Overall

By Bruce Collier
March 5, 2009 Issue

We ate at Bistro Bijoux on a weekend, and the rest of the Village of Baytowne Wharf looked pretty quiet. It was a little chilly, and Bistro Bijoux was serving its cool-weather eats. Our server—the polite and soft-spoken Alison—told us the menu changes seasonally, so be prepared for something different if you wait to go. They have a specially priced three-course meal (including wine), but we decided to pick and choose off the full menu.

Bistro Bijoux sits on a corner just as one enters the Village. The interior is warmly dim, with a main dining room and several smaller rooms for more private dining. There's a very grownup-looking cocktail lounge, and the house was playing a discreet recorded mix of jazz and some exotic, Middle Eastern-sounding music. The decor is all wood, cloth, candlelight and crystal, and tables are spaced for privacy in conversation.

The kitchen offers appetizers, soups and salads, main courses, and desserts, the latter on a separate menu. Alison brought us water, took our drink orders, told us of some specials, and left us to consider. Our job was made easier by the arrival of a basket of two kinds of warm bread. One was a crusty country French, the other a slightly sweet/tangy bread that tasted like a cross between cornbread and focaccia.

To start, my companion ordered duck confit with gnocchi, and I had buttermilk batter-fried quail. Both looked gorgeous, but that wasn't enough to save them. We downed them, using the bread to maximum effect. The duck was lean but silky, and the quail crunchy and savory. With the duck came pillowy little gnocchi and tender pumpkin, and the quail rested on a brioche "biscuit."

Other starters were crab cakes, shrimp in garlic olive oil and tasso cream, seared diver scallops with corn and pancetta risotto, and roasted oysters with saffron hollandaise. There's also French onion soup, a daily soup, and salads variously topped with fried oysters, pears, and goat cheese.

For the main event, my friend got veal scallopine, served in a mustard cream sauce with basil pesto fettuccine. I ordered a New Zealand venison rib chop, with polenta, spinach and a natural juice sauce flavored with juniper berry, cinnamon and chocolate.

Both lived up to our expectations. The mustard in the sauce cut nicely into the richness of the cream and lightly breaded tender veal. The venison, cooked medium rare and therefore chewy, was perfectly set off by the rich and complex flavors of juniper, cinnamon and chocolate. I've never eaten in a hunter's cabin in the Black Forest, but I bet the food there tastes just like this.

Other entrees were black grouper with romesco sauce, pignoli-crusted salmon, seared ahi tuna with coconut jasmine rice, shrimp with grits, chicken breast with red cabbage, cowboy bone-in rib eye, and filet mignon. All come with imaginative sauces and various sides like mashed potatoes, broiled tomatoes, garlic chips, and sautÈed or steamed vegetables. Every one looked worth trying.

My friend boxed up half her veal, and though I had left nothing but deer bones, I wanted dessert. We chose one to split from a list that looked as tempting as everything else on the menu. Choices that night were pear bread pudding, apple tart, crËme brulee, chocolate ganache cake, cheesecake, and a cheese platter with fruit and local honey. It was between the pudding and the tart. My companion pointed out that the pudding came with goat cheese ice cream. That tore it.

The pudding was enough for two. It was soft, spicy, and full of pears and pecans, all resting in a buttery whiskey-laced sauce. Goat cheese ice cream belongs in every freezer, and that's that.

I reviewed Bistro Bijoux some years ago, and gave it top marks. In the interim—I forget how long, but in this area, restaurant life spans should be measured in dog years—I have eaten there just because I wanted to. It started great, it stayed great, and I think it might even be better.

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