Bistrot Lepic & Wine Bar

Start with what it’s not. It’s not a purveyor of classic bistro fare—no steak frites, no steaming bowls of mussels. And it’s not a haven for persnickety culinary prescriptivists. (Chef Bruno Fortin’s ingredient list includes, among other things, polenta, risotto, shiitake, ginger butter, and—sacré bleu!—olive oil.) And although this cramped but lively Georgetown restaurant is well-suited to lingering and grazing, thanks to a wonderful, light onion tart and a raft of carefully tended salads—particularly a wild mushroom fricassee and a smoked trout salad with radicchio and grapefruit, with a terrific push and pull of textures and tastes—it’s not a ladies-who-lunch place. It’s the gutsier, lustier stuff that this kitchen seems to have been built for. Let the not-inconsiderable leisure class that populates the surrounding neighborhood sup discreetly; for you, there are deeper, more sensual satisfactions to be had. A potato-crusted salmon with an ouzo grape sauce, a guinea hen stuffed with mushrooms and served with a quail egg, and a plate of braised veal cheeks are a fairly good representation of Fortin at his accessible best. His inaccessible best is even better, when technique is wholly subsumed into expression: veal kidneys in a Dijon mustard sauce; calf liver with capers, garlic, and black olives; a crusty boneless pig’s feet with onion sauce.
—Todd Kliman, August 3, 2004