Bidlabu Bistro was in the middle of downtown hidden down a back alley. It’s a fairly small place packed with small wooden tables. When weather permits there is patio dining. They offer only a tasting menu with meat or vegetarian and optional wine pairings. There are 2 seatings and you are told when you make your reservation that you just have the table for 2 hours. Bathrooms are downstairs and women are marked with cats and men with dogs – Frankie approved. The kitchen is run by André Rickert and Patrick Löhl. Service was friendly and the tasting did not lag. Portion control was also good. They have received one Michelin Star.
Set- Up
Food
We started the meal with a nice Negroni cocktail. The bread came in a bag and was a crusty brown bread with a nicely doughy interior. It came with softened butter with spices. You could see the large loaves on a side counter and occasionally they’d be cut into pieces and put into the bags for serving.
Two amuse bouche were pumpkin soup and French carrot. The soup was topped with basil and seasoned with curry. It was lovely and warm and contained chunks of pumpkin. The carrot was topped with lemon herb mayo and a bit of green to carry out the image. It was slightly firm with crisps outside, which must have been the “dirt” attached when it was dug up.
Tuna with turnip, cucumber and apple was first on the menu. Chunks of raw tuna were with small disks of apple and covered in thin sliced turnip pieces. Some sauces underneath tied all the ingredients together nicely.
Mushroom soup was seasoned with Kaffir lime oil and leek. Some cabbage shreds were in the mix and the mushrooms were finely diced. The strongly flavored broth was light and delicious.
Cod (catch of the day) was plated with saffron, fennel and shrimp. The large flake fish was perfectly cooked and blended well with the cut-up shrimp. Some potatoes were also on the plate and it was nice but mildly flavored.
Lamb was with green asparagus, potato and wild garlic. The potato was on the side and had some asparagus pieces in the creamy dish and some crunchy bits on the top. It was very tasty. The lamb was perfectly cooked but was helped with a little of the table butter as it was fairly lean and the sauce was quite light. The asparagus spear on the plate was adorned with some crunch bits and had been nicely peeled.
There were two desserts to choose from so we each had one. Maroilles (cow’s milk cheese) was topped with pear and radish. The radish was very thin sliced and the pear was a preserve that was spread on the cheese. It was not my favorite but my husband said it was okay.
Rhubarb with buttermilk, almond and raspberry was not at all what I expected. Buttermilk foam was topped with crumbled almond cookies and dehydrated raspberries. Rhubarb was in the mix and added a bit of tart to the creamy mix on the bottom. The raspberry was nicely understated but added a touch of sweetness. It was quite good and fairly different.
A last treat was a Madeleine with passionfruit cream. Buttery goodness with sweet cream was a nice way to end the meal.
You know a place is fancy when they peel the asparagus! How is it language wise over there? Do they have a lot of people that speak English?
Thanks! English is widely spoken in nicer restaurants and hotels, especially in the bigger cities. It’s harder in small towns but for this last set of restaurants we visited they were all highly rated so plenty of the staff had good English. Students across Europe are taught English as a universal language so we are very lucky. It’s nice if you have a few phrases to speak, like hello or thank you, which isn’t too hard – except for me that always mixes us good morning and good evening 🤭.