Bluette (aka Sweets and Savories North) Wilmette

My first trip to Bluette was Thursday, with the Evanston Lunch Group™ - we were a fairly small group, so the ordering power wasn't as great as it's been on other occasions, but it was an excellent meal nonetheless.


We started with a perfectly cooked Vegetable Omelette - the egg wasn't too firm, and the interior contained a well-seasoned ratatouille.


Next up was the Butter-poached Lobster Risotto - large chunks of lobster buried under creamy, perfectly al dente rice. A rich luxurious dish (and I have to thank Robert for bringing along a crisp Argentine White that cut through the richness of the dish - Bluette is BYOB).


For me, the least interesting - but still very good - dish was the Croque Monsieur. It was a very good rendition of a ham and cheese sandwich, but for whatever reason it didn't resonate with me like the other dishes did. Note that Chef Richards seems to have a penchant for using beet sprouts as garnish.


Probably the highlight (although it closely ties with the lobster risotto) was the Kobe Beef Burger with Foie Gras. Although e didn't specify a doneness, it arrived somewhere between medium-rare and medium, and was very juicy. The bun was sturdy enough to soak up the juices, and the foie gras put it over the top.

The kitchen comped us two desserts:


A Fallen Chocolate Souffle, and


a Seville Orange Cheesecake.

Both were decadently excellent, although, to pick nits, the chocolate souffle might have been a slight bit on the dry side. It was comped, I ate it all, and it tasted great. 'nuf said.

The space was smaller than I'd anticipated, but still, it was respectably full for a Thursday lunch. The portion sizes were generous without being Maggiano's obscene, and the bill was under $20 pp before tip.

I'll be going back soon.

nr706 sums up our meal very well and contributes his outstanding photos. I found the ratatouille omelette a bit bland, but it was very nicely cooked (as Tom C. on Top Chef is always saying). The lobster risotto was my favorite dish--the rice was the perfect consistency and the generous lobster pieces were tender and sweet. The Kobe burger with foie was a good but very, very rich dish. The croque monsieur (listed as croquet monsieur on the menu) was made with good ham and bread and a nice runny egg on top. I found the desserts fine but nothing exceptional, but like Tom, I ate them!

Bluette takes its name seriously: the small dining room's walls are painted a fairly deep blue with crisp white molding. Water glasses are a vibrant orange. The molded white plastic chairs are more comfortable than they look, and I always appreciate cloth napkins. I don't know how the room looks in the evening, but at lunch it was quite bright.

Do they serve beer/wine/cocktails?

nr706 wrote:(and I have to thank Robert for bringing along a crisp Argentine White that cut through the richness of the dish - Bluette is BYOB).

Ate there once so far and was very content with mostly everything. Want to visit once more before reporting, but one thing I had forgotten popped in to my mind looking at the photos. Doesn't it feel like to use a bit too much greenery as garnishes for every dish?

I gotta tell you, that omelet looks hopelessly over cooked to me.

Enough with the frikkin wilted microgreens!

nr706 wrote:
For me, the least interesting - but still very good - dish was the Croque Monsieur. It was a very good rendition of a ham and cheese sandwich, but for whatever reason it didn't resonate with me like the other dishes did. Note that Chef Richards seems to have a penchant for using beet sprouts as garnish.

I believe that's a Croque Madame.

Kennyz wrote:I believe that's a Croque Madame.

Perhaps, but the menu lists it as "croquet monsieur."

nr706 wrote:

Kennyz wrote:I believe that's a Croque Madame.

Perhaps, but the menu lists it as "croquet monsieur."

"Egg" = Madame. It looks like they changed the menu to reflect the correct name, at least on the web.

I'm going there later tonight and will report back with photos.

My wife Jan and I went to Bluette last night with Jan's sister Deb and her husband Charlie. Overall, it was a very nice evening with many more positives than negatives. I'm going to start with the couple of negatives, so that I can end on the positives. Also, sorry for the quality of the photos. I use a great camera but I try to take photos without a flash in restaurants and as the evening gets later and the wine increases, my ability to hold the camera completely steady seems to change.

First, the negatives:

Sprouts - David Richards seems to have a love of sprouts, because they're on everything except the desserts, as you'll see from the photos. IMHO, there are three primary problems with this. 1- Over the course of an evening, all these sprouts just make the restaurant look silly. 2 - Many of the applications of the sprouts are plain ugly and detract from the dishes. As you'll see in some of the photos, these aren't just a few sprouts but are big handfuls in clumps that hide the dish. 3 - The use of all of these sprouts must be expensive, which just increases the amount of the dishes unnecessarily. Chef David, if you're reading this, deep six the sprouts!!

Service - There's some real problems here that can be easily fixed. First off, all the folks are really nice and very helpful. That's not the issue. The issues can be categorized into two areas - staff knowledge and course timing.

On staff knowledge, the staff seems to know absolutely nothing about what's in the dishes. We asked several questions either in the course of ordering or after the food arrived and in every case, the waiter needed to go back to the kitchen to get the answer. In one instance, Jan asked what root vegetables were in the dish "Root Vegetable Curry" that she wanted to order. The waiter answered "Zucchini and maybe green pepper". When told that those weren't root vegetables, he went back to the kitchen and came up with the right answer. Then in the case of the "White Chocolate Key Lime Pie", it arrived without any sign of white chocolate, so we asked about it. Back to the kitchen twice, before he came back with the answer that "it's inside the pie". The chef needs to spend some time with the staff telling them about what's in the dishes.

On the timing of the courses, we had two issues. For the first course, three of us ordered soup and one person ordered salad. The soups arrived more than five minutes before the salad, so we sat there with our soup getting cold waiting for the last party to be served. The second issue was that the main courses arrived while Jan was still eating her soup, although the other three of us were done and the plates had already been cleared (another faux pas). Either the waiters aren't communicating with the kitchen staff or the kitchen staff isn't listening to them and doing whatever they want in their own time.

These timing and knowledge issues are Restaurant 101 stuff and should be fixed pronto.

Now the positives, which is the food.

We did have a couple of negatives on the food, which I'll point out, but they were overshadowed by the high quality of the dishes.

First Course

Across the four of us, we ordered the French Onion soup, the Lobster Bisque, and the Salad Lyonnaise. Photos of the Lobster Bique and the Salad Lyonnaise are below. Jan liked the French Onion soup and said it wasn't at all salty. It had sprouts on it too, so go figure. Deb had the Salad Lyonnaise and really liked it, with the poached egg, brioche croutons and the bacon dressing. Charlie and I both had the Lobster Bisque, which was tasty but not at all lobster bisque. It was more like a squash soup with some pieces of lobster in it.





Main Course

I ordered the NY Strip Steak with mashed potatoes and gorgonzola cream (they were out of the duck leg confit). Jan ordered the Root Vegetable Curry with chick pea ragout. Deb had the Butter Poached Lobster Risotto. Charlie ordered the Mahi Mahi with ratatouille.

My NY Strip was cooked perfectly medium rare and had great flavor. The mashed potatoes were excellent, if not a bit plain. The gorgonzola cream was excellent on the steak. Over all, a really nice dish.



Jan's Root Vegetable Curry was excellent, with the spice actually being somewhat muted. She liked the chick pea ragout as well.



Deb's Lobster Risotto got really high praise. The rice was cooked perfectly and there was a lot of lobster in the dish. I think you can see it there under the bunch of sprouts.



Charlie liked his Mahi Mahi quite a bit, but really hated the dish it was served in. It was actually in a bowl instead of a dish, and he had a heck of a time getting his food out of it. They really should use a regular plate for this dish. You'll have to trust me that the Mahi Mahi is in the photo below. I know the photo is poor, but even if it was crystal clear you wouldn't be able to see the fish under all those sprouts.



Dessert

Jan ordered the White Chocolate Key Lime pie. I ordered the Orange Cheesecake. Deb ordered the Creme Brulee. Charlie ordered the Fallen Chocolate Souffle, which is basically a flourless chocolate cake.

My Orange Cheesecake was excellent. The orange flavor was somewhat muted, which was just right for me. It didn't have the sauce that 'nr706" shows in the first post, which was unfortunate.



Jan's Key Lime pie was really good. The green liquid on the plate was a lime-flavored gel.



Deb's Creme Brulee was very good. There was nothing exceptional to it, and I didn't get a photo of it.

Charlie's fallen chocolate souffle was very good, although there was nothing on the menu about the raspberry sauce (Charlie hates fruit with chocolate). He had to eat around the sauce.



Again, the food was overall really good and we had a great time. We'll definitely go back to Bluette, and hopefully they'll get the service stuff handled.

The foie burger doesn't appear on the posted menu, hope it becomes a reg fixture like at S/S.

bluette
1162 wilmette ave,
wilmette, il 60091
847 853 8988

lunch
wednesday thru friday 11 to 3
dinner
wednesday thru saturday 5 to 9, sunday to 8
BYOB, cash or check

John Danza wrote:Sprouts - David Richards seems to have a love of sprouts, because they're on everything except the desserts, as you'll see from the photos. IMHO, there are three primary problems with this. 1- Over the course of an evening, all these sprouts just make the restaurant look silly. 2 - Many of the applications of the sprouts are plain ugly and detract from the dishes. As you'll see in some of the photos, these aren't just a few sprouts but are big handfuls in clumps that hide the dish. 3 - The use of all of these sprouts must be expensive, which just increases the amount of the dishes unnecessarily. Chef David, if you're reading this, deep six the sprouts!!

Haven't eaten at Bluette, but have to weigh in: I'm a big believer that every ingredient in a dish should be necessary, and chefs should avoid adding ingredients that don't improve the dish. When I see a restaurant that sprinkles spouts or diced bell peppers or parsley on every savory dish, it seriously makes me question the wisdom of the chef. In 95% of the cases, the chef is adding those items to make the dish look prettier, not taste better. Send out stellar food & few people will care how it looks.