Bistro Niko: {A Buckhead Dining Review}
The usual martini with beautiful gougeres….gruyere cheese puffs…
AUTHOR: ARTSY CHOW ROAMER
Bistro Niko
A REVIEW OF THIS BUCKHEAD RESTAURANT
If you have been reading this blog then you know that my husband and I have been on the Summer Dine Around series with Buckhead Life Restaurants. The first two restaurants were Pricci and Atlanta Fish Market.
Both of those experiences were extremely good showing that they are still the established best in their fields in the Buckhead area for Italian and fresh seafood respectively. I like to think of Bistro Niko as being the star in the crown jewels since it is one of the newest in the chain.
It was not our first visit and we looked forward to going for our anniversary. We were shown promptly to a table and I noticed the music had been amped up in a way it was not necessary to do before. There normally was a pretty good buzz coming from the patrons in the bar by 5 or so in the past.
Not so much at this hour this time; only a few tables and still plenty of room in the bar as well. We ordered drinks and a basket of gougeres from the menu (read gruyere cheese puffs here). These little things are like crack. You literally could eat the whole basket yourself.
They were light, airy and still a little warm from the oven. Perfect with any kind of drink but especially so with a cold martini with olives. They were simply melt in your mouth-delicious! Our server, Julian, was friendly and efficient getting those drinks and apps out quickly to us.
FIRST COURSES
We were disappointed to see that the Hudson Valley Foie Gras had been disappeared from the menu. I decided on an endive salad with blue cheese, walnuts and apples and my husband chose melted Swiss Raclette cheese with baguette toast. I guess it was a cheese sorta night to start. 😀
While Julian was getting that put together for us I decided to take some atmosphere pics. I was trying to get a snap of the big mural inside the main dining room when a waiter stopped to chat me up. He asked if I knew that Ted Turner was in the mural somewhere and I said I did not.
He suggested I go look and he would help me find it if I needed him to. I didn’t; my eye was immediately drawn to the figure that was obviously supposed to be Jane Fonda coming to meet him at the door of the Bistro.
Our first courses arrived and they were very good. The endive was bitter but with just the right amount of a sweeter dressing that blended perfectly with the blue cheese and walnuts. It was also the best mix with the melted Raclette and baguette; a cheese that can be a little stinky for some and heaven to others.
I gotta say not only was the cheese a really good one but the little miniature mushrooms on top had a touch of pickling with heat that added just the right bit of burn at the end of each bite. Brilliant!
Neither of these dishes disappointed and were big enough that even with sharing we wondered if we would be able to finish the second courses we were contemplating.
SECOND COURSES
I decided on the mustard crusted pork belly which was a much heavier dish than I probably should have been eyeballing. My husband made the lighter pick of large gulf shrimp in “brique” pastry with celeriac remoulade and lemon aioli.
Julian hurried off to put the orders in to the kitchen. They were small plates and he assured us they would not take long to prepare. I liked the open concept kitchen at the entry to this restaurant. It was spotlessly clean and they show you the freshness of the seafood they are preparing for you in the windows.
I snapped a few shots of them working on plates and I saw fresh oysters that I wished I had ordered! Everything looked tasty and beautiful.
Julian presented our second course plates and we dug in. I tried his and he tried mine. We both were a little perplexed. Both plates had some good things but for the first time in our experience with this restaurant we felt that there some problems too.
On the pork belly plate there was crispness and the belly was tender. The sauce was a miss. Mustard crusting with perhaps something that was tomato based giving it a reddish tint that was off-putting never the less. A very heavy dish that probably should have come as a smaller portion for a less expensive price.
On the shrimp plate the portioning was correct and the pastry was nice and crisp. The shrimp was the problem; an odd underlying medicinal quality to the flavor that I find sometimes from seafood from the gulf (can you say oil spill perhaps?). Maybe just not as fresh as it should have been?
I thought the sauce was very good but I personally do not like tarragon and a liberal hand with an overpowering herb can ruin a sauce.
We very much enjoyed a glass of white wine from the Alsace region of France that was excellent at $10 a glass and would order a bottle the next time we visited. It worked well with both the pork and the shrimp dishes.
DID SOMEONE SAY DESSERT?
We had decided we were going to have espresso and a Calvados to finish off our meal when an anniversary dessert appeared. This is one thing that I think this group of restaurants do well with. They know you have a celebration happening and they respond on check in about it and usually bring you a dessert on the house-good policy.
Having said that, the dessert even if free, needs to be good. The one thing you expect at a French restaurant is good desserts no matter what you order. This plate was kind of hot mess from all sides. I would say it was much more like an American sundae sort of dessert.
Scoops of ice cream with what tasted like a bottled chocolate sauce poured all over with tons of nut shavings and a few little puff thingies. We took a bite or two and pushed the plate away.
They brought the espresso and Calvados. Calvados will never disappoint of course but the picture of that espresso tells you all you need to know. A shovel of a spoon was on the side and there was no foam on top telling you exactly what it would taste like. I did not expect either of these things from a restaurant of this category.
CONCLUSION
So I would say that overall our anniversary experience was not what I would have hoped for but it also was not what my past experience has been with this restaurant. Even with small plates and the $25 dine around card, we spent upwards of $135 with tip.
After paying that check and having some disappointments we pulled out of the parking garage with a $12 parking tab for under two hours as well. Guys…this ain’t New York city yet. I don’t care if you are in Buckhead-you need to validate. You don’t pay for parking at the rest of your Buckhead locations. 🤷♀️🙄
Check out another review here
If you enjoyed what you read here you might want to read other blogs under Edible Fare. Hey, don’t be a stranger! Let me hear from you on your experience at Bistro Niko or anything else you might like to chew on my ear about OK? Really…write some comments…give me some love! 🤣 Until next time…
Cheers,
ArtsyChowRoamer
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