Very nice meal at Bistro Banlieu, Lombard

We went to Bistro Banlieu on June 29th after reading much about it at the Chow site and hearing a bit about it from others. We started our meal with chilled poached lobster with tarragon,asparagus,potato salad, and topped with Tobikko caviar-- it was wonderful. My entree was sauteed scallops with watercress, caramelized pecans, orange supremes, raspberry vinaigrette, and citrus aioli. Very good, scallops, cooked rare, and very flavorful, only complaint I have is there wasn't enough aioli. My husband had the pan roasted halibut with bay scallops, octopus, roasted sweet peppers, diced potatoes and roasted garlic beurre blanc. As much as I liked mine, his was better. The Halibut was cooked perfectly and the beurre blanc sauce was heavenly. We shared a dessert which was the duo of white chocolate & bittersweet chocolate mousse with creme anglaise, pisatchios and raspberrry sauce. Wonderful and very large, but again could have used more of both sauces. We had a nice glass of Tefft Cellars Viogner wine with our fish. All in all an excellent meal. Cute place, nicely done, service was good and we will certainly go back!

At the risk of repeating myself, to my mind, with the departure of Les Deux Gros, and dumbing down of L'Anne, I believe Bistro Banlieue to be serving the bestest, most ambitous-est cuisine in the western suburbs. All without being terribly ambitious, in that they position themselves as a somewhat fancy and formal Bistro. And the food does not go way beyond that, but it is very well done of late, tasty and well executed. The halibut sounds great.

I am trying to think of a peer that I would compare it to - maybe it is just a suburban time warp thing, harking back to when all French cooking was fancy (anyone remember La Bastille?).

Thanks for the update.

Dish wrote:After 17 years of doing Lombard proud, Bistro Banlieue (44 Yorktown Convenience Ctr., Lombard; 630-629-6560) will close on July 31st. “There have been tons of new restaurants opening up here,” says Steve Byrne, the owner, “and I still want to be the best restaurant out here.” That means a new look (white tablecloths, carpeting), a new name (undecided as yet), and a new menu (“American fine dining”). “I want the chef [Mark Downing] to expand, not just limit himself to French,” says Byrne. “He will have the ability to use any worldwide influence he wants to use.” Any holdovers from the BB days? “No. When we open, we will open fresh. But there is no way that the chef will get away with not making the cassoulet during the winter. As a special.”

Yeah, Ed, I saw that too. Sad. Need to go once or twice before they close.

Having been to Bistro Banlieu maybe three times over the past 15 years or so, I think it was just fine, but you know, sometimes it's just time to recognize your time has come...and close shop.

La Bastille was our first favorite restaurant in Chicago. I don't remember it as having particularly fancy food, just solid bistro fare, nor do I remember it as being fancy inside, very simple decor and menus. It was also my children's favorite restaurant as they were always asked if they wanted wine glasses, which they usually accepted, although they were just young teens at the time. Very French attitude-if the parents say they can have wine with the meal, they can have wine with the meal.
I remember the decor to be very unstuffy even mod in a Mod sense, unlike Banlieue which I find too fussy as I always think of as made for a gentleman trying to impress his mistress. The booths at La Bastille were stark white with utilitarian lamp fixtures if my memory serves me (which it sometimes doesn't).
La Bastille was also the first in a series of restaurants that folded for which we blamed ourselves for liking them too much-Le Bordeaux, Blackhawk Lodge, Eat Your Hearts Out, Glory, Mod, Chez Francois to name just a few.