Kiki's Bistro [was Bistro Kiki]

My bride and I dined here Satuday evening. Overall everything was fine, but somehow I was left with the feeling that both guest and host were only going through the motions, neither was particularly passionate about the experience.

8:30 reservations were honored - the restaurant was not quite full. Bread was served upon seating and was lackluster, just some baguette slices. Starters were chevre tart with a ratatioulle filling - excellent, and a duck liver pate, also very good.

Entrees were steak frites, a 1/2" thick full face cut, top sirloin with matchstick fries. Rack of lamb, over mashed potatoes was OK, cooked to a perfect medium rare. I didn't ask, but I would guess the lamb was Australian, a bit strong flavored for my taste. The potatoes might well have been instant, but tasted OK, with a bit of garlic flavor.

We split a very good berry gelato for dessert.

Service was adequate, not especially personable, but technically competent.

With 3 glasses of wine the tab was $100 before tip, a reasonable value. If everuthing was 10% better, this would be a rave review, but the fireworks just didn't quite go off for us.

This was the only place I could find anything about Kiki's, so here are my musings from last night.

I got there early, before the soon to be Mrs. jpschust and ordered a perfect manhattan on the rocks. The quantities of alcohol were fine except the bar has no bitters, hence is really unable to make a manhattan. Fine, it's a wine joint, so after that drink I ordered a glass of wine.

Someone ordered a glass of campari and when he was pouring the bottle ran out. He looked actively flustered as he couldn't find a new bottle to finish topping off the glass (he looked around quite a bit for one) and then added more ice to the glass and went to top it off with water. Luckily the waitress waived him off, but had I been the one to get a drink with water added to it I would have been mad as hell.

We sat for dinner and ordered a decent burgundy. Nothing mindblowing, but there are a few decent finds on the list at a reasonable price. For dinner I started with the duck ravioli which was nothing to write home about, but certainly decent. The sauce was actually better than the ravioli. For my main I had rack of lamb which had obviously been sitting under a heat lamp for about 10 minutes. It was ok, but not good or great.

For dessert we shared a cheese plate. Let me go on a small rant here. Why on earth do you serve a cheese plate if 1) your cheese is uninteresting (there aren't many bries that are interesting, and the brie we were served last night was the epitome of 3.99 supermarket brie); and 2) you serve your cheese plate as though it has come straight out of the refrigerator at 33 degrees. If you aren't willing to temper your cheese then don't serve it. It's a complete waste of time as you can't taste ANYTHING of cold cheese.

All in all, I'll not go back. I've got serious questions about the ethics of the bartender, the clenliness of the bar, and the kitchen's ability to serve quality food.

JP,

As French Bistro fare is my favorite, the GF and I have tried many a Chicagoland bistro including Kiki's several months ago. Kiki's impresses me as a place with a very high "regulars" quotient. I have both heard that and experienced it on my one visit where it seemed that everyone knew everyone else's name. That's kinda cool.

I like the layout of the place and it had a decent vibe. But the food was not memorable in the least - neither in a good nor bad way. I couldn't come with terms with what all the scuttle but surrounding this place was? Of the 12-15 French bistros the GF and I have tried in the Chicagoland area, Kiki's was squarely near, it not quite at, the bottom.

We will not be returning.

Bster

French bistro food is my comfort food. To some their comfort food is BBQ, to some it is fried chicken, to some it is soup dumplings, but to me it's french bistro.

That said, we had dinner the other night at Le Bouchon (soon to be Mrs. Jpschust is being awesome in taking me from my long hours at my new job to eat French food at night). Le Bouchon is really wonderful- much better bottle selection than Kikis, food is significantly better. What I can't figure out is that the first time we went to Le Bouchon our cheese plate was tempered, but last time it was icy cold. That said, it's a much better composed plate than Kiki's.

Can we all just agree that if you serve cold cheese you might as well just serve a brick of ice?

jpschust wrote:Can we all just agree that if you serve cold cheese you might as well just serve a brick of ice?

This is a big pet peeve of mine too, and what's really annoying is just how simple a task this should be for a restaurant.

After all the bad reviews, I was beyond pleasantly surprised by our Restaurant Week dinner at Kiki's last night.

We all started with the Onion Soup, it was excellant. Well seasoned. Just enough cheese. Lots of well carmelized onions.

There were 3 entree options - Lamb Brochette, Duck, and Salmon. We each ordered a diffferent one. I tasted the lamb, and it was very good. The duck was wonderful. It was a breast and a duck leg confit. The portion was massive. 1 large full breast, pan roasted and served slices and perfectly rare with crisp skin. The Leg/thigh just melted in your mouth. It was served with wild rice that tasted like it was cooked in cream, this is a good thing. I was so full, but I couldn't stop eating it. Also, a huge pile of braised red cabbage and some steamed carrots and parsnips.

For dessert, I had the creme brulee - a HUGE portion, perfectly cooked.

My dining partners had the lemon tart. They enjoyed it.

Dinner for 3, plus one bottle of a good house Cotes-Du-Rhone and 3 coffees - $147 before tip.

I haven't been to Kiki's in a long time, but after some disappointing meals at Le Bouchon and Bistro Campagne, I think I know where to go.

I thought I would post a couple of recent Kiki's experiences, as I think they've gotten their act together from a year or two ago.

A couple of months ago I stopped in for lunch on a Friday. I ordered the duck salad. What was presented was a large portion with perfectly seared duck breast layered on top. The grape vinaigrette was an excellent pairing with the saltiness of the roquefort cheese and the richness of the duck. I highly recommend it if you're there for lunch. By the way, the place was packed, which surprised me given its location.

Last Friday night my wife and I went with another couple for dinner. The place was mostly full, but there may have been a couple of open tables.

For starters, we all had the french onion soup. This rendition was excellent, with not too much cheese like many places will do. While this french staple shouldn't be hard for restaurants, I'm frequently disappointed with it because of saltiness of the broth or thinness of the flavor. The Kiki's version was seasoned perfectly and had great flavor.

For salads, I ordered a special salad consisting of mixed greens and walnuts with a breaded, seared round of goat cheese on top, with a vinaigrette dressing. It was executed well, with the walnuts being slightly candied, IIRC. It was good, but not memorable. My wife ordered the beet salad, because she's a beet fiend. She loved this version, with the hazelnut dression being a new twist. These were pretty large portioned salads.

My main course was the seared duck breast with duck leg confit, served with wild rice and red cabbage and a green peppercorn sauce. The duck breast was cooked perfectly rare to medium rare, as I requested. The duck leg confit was excellent, with no greasiness whatsoever. The accompaniments were a bit plain however, wild rice needing some salt for my taste. The red cabbage was fine, but I'm not a cabbage guy so it was just along for the ride. The sauce was nice and not too peppery, which would have been the case if using black pepper.

My wife ordered the steak frites, which she always does if it's on the menu of anyplace we go. The flavor was very nice based on my one-bite sample, but I've never been a fan of this dish in any bistro. If I want a steak, I'll go to a place that specializes in steak. However, the frites were fabulous, very thin and crispy.

The other couple both ordered the fish special, which I'm afraid I didn't commit to memory. They both raved about it however.

One thing that struck home with me was the size of the portions compared to the price. The salad and entree portions are very generous, and the prices very reasonable.

The other thing I liked was the wine list. It's not extensive, but there's some very good selections at very good prices. It was nice to be able to order a good white burgundy for under $50 and a good red burgundy for under $60.

My understanding is that this place was struggling a couple of years ago, with problems in the kitchen. My experiences recently leads me to believe that they've righted the ship. I would recommend that you make another visit there and try it for yourself.

Would anyone mind posting an address? I'm not sure where Bistro Kiki is located.

Thanks!

It's Kiki's Bistro. (The comment about improving over the last year or two is funny, since they've been open since 1990! But improvement is always a good thing.)

Kiki's Bistro
900 N. Franklin
Chicago, IL 60610
312 335 5454
kikisbistro@yahoo.com
http://www.kikisbistro.com/

Hours of Operation
Lunch, Mon-Fri 11:30am-2pm
Dinner, Mon-Thurs 5-9pm
Dinner, Fri-Sat 5-10pm
Closed Sunday

Thanks, Darren. I knew Kiki's Bistro, but this Bistro Kiki threw me for a loop!

Darren72 wrote:(The comment about improving over the last year or two is funny, since they've been open since 1990! But improvement is always a good thing.)

I think a lot of places go through cycles, especially when they've been open for a long time. I hadn't been to Kiki's for probably 10 years, for no other reason than I hadn't thought about it. I heard from a couple of people that they were having trouble with the kitchen a year or two ago. My experience over the past couple of months didn't show any problem.

Darren72 wrote:The comment about improving over the last year or two is funny, since they've been open since 1990!

1990? I could swear that I first ate at Kiki's some time around 1984-85.

You may be thinking of his previous restaurant.

I got the 1990 figure from this Phil Vettel review: http://chicago.metromix.com/restaurants ... 48/content

In 1990, Georges "KiKi" Cuisance closed his Le Bordeaux restaurant in the Loop and opened a French bistro in the shadow of the Cabrini-Green housing complex.

I remembered it because I remember unexpectedly running into co-workers there, who I quit working with in 1986. But it's entirely possible that they were previous co-workers when I ran into them.

I went there for Chicago's Restaurant Week last February and overall I thought it was ok.

They had a special menu for Restaurant week though so I can't fully judge but here is what they were offering:

A choice of one per course:

1st Course
Fricasée of Mushrooms, Madeira Sauce
Duck Raviolis, Natural Jus
Onion Soup Gratinee

2nd Course
Lamb Brochette et Son Couscous with Lamb Sauce
Duo of Duck Breast and Duck Confit with Green Peppercorn Sauce
Poached King Salmon with Hollandaise Sauce

3rd Course
Lemon Tart with Raspberry Sauce
Kiki’s Cremè Brulée with Chocolate Bottom
Croustade de Poire with Caramel Sauce

I had the mushrooms, the lamb and the poached pears (croustade de poire). The mushrooms were decent, the lamb was just ok, but the dessert was by far my favorite! It was out of this world!!



I wrote a bigger review on my blog here if you're interested: http://chewonthatblog.com/2008/02/29/kikis-bistro-my-restaurant-week-pick/

Mrs. JiLS and I took our maiden voyage at Kiki's tonight, and it was a very pleasant trip. Despite the funny urban Disneyland ambiance of raw timber bolted onto the cast concrete supports of this former warehouse, which raised an eyebrow or two for a minute, the charm of the place and the welcoming and professional staff pretty quickly took over our experience. We learned that Kiki's is a great place for excellent onion soup on a cold, Chicago night. I really appreciated the sweetness of the onions that predominated the flavor; not overly salty, the broth was infused with some subtlety and complexity. Very nice. The foie gras terrine was very flavorful, although I would have preferred a deeper layer of fat on the edges, and the sides (a little, forlorn-looking salad and two pieces of toast) were disappointing. Mrs. JiLS's coq au vin was a very fine coq au vin, especially the potatoes (of all things), that were pleasingly peeled with a rough hand that just reminded me they had been hand peeled back there in the kitchen, rather than plopped out of a can of new potatoes or some such. A minimal expectation, I suppose, but I do keep coming back to it in my mental notes of the meal. I had a perfectly fine salmon, very well cooked if not necessarily the best quality salmon, also served with a couple of those peeled potatoes and a red pepper sauce and a bed of julienned vegetables that were a bit mushy and reminded me (unfortunately) of nothing so much as the bottom can in the Chung King Chop Suey two-can set that was "Chinese Night" in my Central Indiana household as a child. Ah, memories! Anyway, I ate all the vegetables Kiki's served me, so I suppose I am not actually complaining, here, but rather just advising.

Dessert was a perfectly nice creme brulee that was a notch below that served at Le Bouchon (my personal benchmark that I love for the elemental flavor of the main ingredient, egg, that predominates), but certainly a fine example of the type and better by far than most of what you find here and there. We also had a very fine and reasonably priced red Nuit St. George Burgundy that was recommended by our server when they were out of our first choice. Again, the very professional service was a highlight of this meal, as was the comfortable and comforting setting. I recognize there is a certain white breadedness to the brand of friendly-French food being served at Kiki's, but there's a reason that style of food became so popular, and Kiki's is doing a good job with it. Just don't set the expectation dial to "mind blown," and you'll do fine at Kiki's.

I went to Kiki's for dinner Wednesday night. Mostly it was imminently mediocre, with a few highlights and one definite dud. Kiki's is next door to the school where my wife works and my daughter attends, so we've been meaning to try it out for a while. They have a 3 course pre fixe dinner, which we did. For the first course we had the mushroom fricasse and the moules marinere. Both were perfectly serviceable, but nothing out of the ordinary. My wife had the grilled salmon with spinach an buerre blanc for her entree. The salmon was cooked well, if unexciting. I had the lamb navarin, which was a definite mistake. The base of the stew was overly sweet and tomato-y; it tasted rather like ketchup thinned with stock. On top of that, every item in the stew, with the exception of the very starchy peas was too big to eat in a single bite. Maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine, but I feel like stews should have bite-sized pieces, not 2 inch long tourneed vegetables and whole hericot vert. We both had the lemon tart for dessert, which was quite good.

Overall, navarin aside, it wasn't bad, but for about the same money (about $100 for both of us, including a glass of wine each) I'd much rather have dinner at Cyrano's or Mon Ami Gabi. I likely won't be back.

eli wrote: On top of that, every item in the stew, with the exception of the very starchy peas was too big to eat in a single bite. Maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine, but I feel like stews should have bite-sized pieces, not 2 inch long tourneed vegetables and whole hericot vert.

by chance did they have any of these on the table?

mhill95149 wrote:

eli wrote: On top of that, every item in the stew, with the exception of the very starchy peas was too big to eat in a single bite. Maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine, but I feel like stews should have bite-sized pieces, not 2 inch long tourneed vegetables and whole hericot vert.

by chance did they have any of these on the table?

My thoughts exactly!

John Danza wrote:

mhill95149 wrote:

eli wrote: On top of that, every item in the stew, with the exception of the very starchy peas was too big to eat in a single bite. Maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine, but I feel like stews should have bite-sized pieces, not 2 inch long tourneed vegetables and whole hericot vert.

by chance did they have any of these on the table?

My thoughts exactly!

I thought the same thing but, in all fairness, eli did admit that it's just a pet peeve of his.

JLenart wrote:
I thought the same thing but, in all fairness, eli did admit that it's just a pet peeve of his.

Hence the it was a very mild poke in his general direction....

As far as the mechanics of stew making, I tend to do make the veggies larger then the meat so everything ends up cooking to doneness at the same time (or there abouts)


at least I didn't say

you

JLenart wrote:

John Danza wrote:

mhill95149 wrote:by chance did they have any of these on the table?

My thoughts exactly!

I thought the same thing but, in all fairness, eli did admit that it's just a pet peeve of his.

I suppose I was being overly picky about the size of the vegetables. But my main point was that the stew wasn't good. I honestly probably wouldn't have even remembered that I had to cut up the vegetables myself if I'd enjoyed the stew after I did.

I just wanted to stick up for you a bit, eli. It's true that having to use a knife to cut the vegetables in a stew pales in comparison to facing brain surgery or dealing with the collapse of the global financial system, but cutting up the ingredients in a stew can be awkward. It's hard to get a "purchase" on the vegetable or meat you're trying to subdivide when it is floating in a bowl of broth. It can slip away from you easily. Splashes can occur. It's just better, and more fun, when stew doesn't make you do this. I get where you're coming from.

Had a really good meal at Kiki's on Friday night. Started with the Coquilles St. Jacques--two very nice-sized, wonderfully fresh scallops in a buttery sauce. Then for an entree had one of that night's specials, a beautiful and generous piece of Alaskan cod in a risotto-like setting. (Not sure what Kiki's called it, probably something other than risotto, but that's what it reminded me of.) Every bite of the fish was marvelous, and I felt like a man on a mission, that mission being to clean my plate.

John may be right that the place has come back from a slight downturn. I do remember feeling underwhelmed the time before this (or maybe it was the time before that), but this time I was thoroughly whelmed. Great to see this "old standby" still going strong.

I rarely post negative reviews, but this one was bad enough I thought others deserved to be warned. We certainly wished we had been.

Perhaps I should have been concerned with the lack of posts on Kiki's since 2010, but I attributed it to being safe, standard French fare in a nice setting. My wife and I went there last night, thinking it would be a mellow place to enjoy a long meal. Well it would have been, had any of the food been good. It was uniformly atrocious and suffered the clear fact that everything had been assembled five hours before. Salads were all ice cold, on ice cold plates, stale bread, butter and pate too cold to spread. Coq au vain somehow void of all flavor, salt, wine, it was truly a modern marvel of tastelessness. French onion soup was more of the same, luke warm in a scalding hot ramekin, came out about 5 seconds after ordering, stale bread, again, poor seasoning. This is what I imagine French airline food would taste like, if they still served meals in coach (first class French airline food may have a leg up on what we ate last night)..,

In short, for those looking for a bistro in the loop, I would steer clear of Kiki's. It was crowded, so maybe it was was what we ordered, but I don't think so. I enjoy Le Bouchon, La Sardine, and Bistro Campagne and they are all far superior.

Adam

Abraus wrote:for those looking for a bistro in the loop, I would steer clear of Kiki's.

Kiki's isn't in the Loop. (For those looking for a French bistro in the Loop, Henri would qualify.)

Abraus wrote:I rarely post negative reviews, but this one was bad enough I thought others deserved to be warned. We certainly wished we had been.

Perhaps I should have been concerned with the lack of posts on Kiki's since 2010, but I attributed it to being safe, standard French fare in a nice setting. My wife and I went there last night, thinking it would be a mellow place to enjoy a long meal. Well it would have been, had any of the food been good. It was uniformly atrocious and suffered the clear fact that everything had been assembled five hours before. Salads were all ice cold, on ice cold plates, stale bread, butter and pate too cold to spread. Coq au vain somehow void of all flavor, salt, wine, it was truly a modern marvel of tastelessness. French onion soup was more of the same, luke warm in a scalding hot ramekin, came out about 5 seconds after ordering, stale bread, again, poor seasoning. This is what I imagine French airline food would taste like, if they still served meals in coach (first class French airline food may have a leg up on what we ate last night)..,

In short, for those looking for a bistro in the loop, I would steer clear of Kiki's. It was crowded, so maybe it was was what we ordered, but I don't think so. I enjoy Le Bouchon, La Sardine, and Bistro Campagne and they are all far superior.

Adam

Weird.

My wife and I made a return visit this same night and I liked it after my initial visit sucked hard.

I do agree that the Bistro Campagne is superior (we are there at least once a month).

Kiki's is a favorite of a couple we dine with every 2-3 months. I'm glad I liked it better this time so we can keep one of their favorite places in our rotation.

I had the mussels special and the rack of lamb.

Again, not saying it was "amazeballs" but I was fine with it.