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Braised beef with glazed carrots, bacon lardons, and potato puree.
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Mussels & fries, a brasserie classic, here in white wine, creme fraiche, and fines herbes.
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Profiteroles, filled-to-order and topped with housemade chocolate sauce.
Everyone needs to have an ace in the hole when it comes to restaurants. The fall-back place, worldly enough to please the sophisticated pals, safe enough to not frighten the cautious eater. Brasserie by Niche fulfills this very well, with its menu that sits between Grandmere's best and things a little less traditional.
It's dim inside, not unusual for a traditional French brasserie. Early in the evening, noise levels are excellent as a business dinner goes on, a couple of solo diners get fed, and couples and four-tops gradually arrive. The bar, in a room to the side, is a good place for a drink and a snack, too - who could resist a glass of wine and some gougères, the cheese-laced nibbles?
They're doing a 3-course prix fixe for $36 now. This saves much agonizing among the first courses, always a challenge. Among those first courses are the gougères, as good as what one finds in Burgundy, moist and laden with good cheese. A moist chicken liver terrine surprised with a hit of sweet-sour-spicy is almost out of balance until a bit of the tangle of confit of red onion was layered atop a bite. The addition rounded things out nicely. That's also included on the charcuterie plate, whose ingredients vary from time to time but always include a coarse pâté with pistachios in it and some housemade creme fraiche topped with minced chives. The salad of curly endive, croutons, generously-sized lardons of good bacon, a poached egg and a bacon vinaigrette was as good as what graced the tables at the much-mourned King Louie's, a real honest salade Lyonnaise.
Mussels belong in a house like this, carefully steamed in white wine, almost lemony, with a touch of cream, the appropriate garlic and some parsley to bring a mid-range flavor note, accompanied by fries, of course, skinny and scooped into a paper-lined cup with a nice bit of aioli for dipping as desired.
And while the menu calls it braised beef, it was their house version of a boeuf bourguignon, perhaps a millimeter lighter than some versions but vinous and smoky from more of that bacon, the beef tender but not shredding itself, the traditional carrots and onions chiming in.
It's difficult to save room for dessert, but make the effort. For instance, very classic profiteroles, the ice cream-filled cream puffs, were clearly made to order rather than being filled hours before and stuck back in the freezer. Wonderfully gooey chocolate sauce finished them off. Lemon tart, and tart is the word, reclined gracefully in a fine crust of pâte sablée, the shortbread-style pastry, crumbly and rich. It was graced with an oval of whipped cream and some crunchy candied pistachios, a great idea. Tarte tatin, the apple tart baked upside down to caramelize the apple juices, sugar and butter, came close, but lacked the slight hit of acidity to bring things to a proper climax. The crust, despite being rewarmed, was nicely chewy at the edges, as it should have been, but it wasn't quite sinful enough to be properly rewarding, although the deeply butterscotch-y toffee ice cream did its part to hold the standard.
Servers know the menu well and are prepared for plenty of questions,. Food arrives with a modest pride. By the middle of many evenings, the joint is rocking but service doesn't seem to slip even when things are crowded. If you really need to have a quiet conversation at this point, take a seat at the bar.
Brasserie by Niche
4580 Laclede
Central West End
314-454-0100
Mon - Thurs: 5 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Fri - Sat: 5 p.m. -11 p.m.
Sat - Sun: 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
