Bisou, 4161 Main St. is the new name of the restaurant formerly known as Gemelli on Main. While its former incarnation had a stunning menu and some serious talent in the kitchen, things needed to be tweaked and changed for the better.
What’s the same is a great view and great service. Other things have been streamlined. The bar is now downstairs, making the upstairs a place to insulate oneself from the bar and take in the aforementioned view of Main Street. The décor is still modern but with a lot more classical French artwork on the walls.
The menu, which was high-concept Italian before, is now a more accessible French-inspired menu that has enough fanciful fair for the more refined diner and more down-to-earth choices (and prices) for the casual bar-hopper.
The former should enjoy hors d’oeuvres like the escargot ($12), which were given the pleasant flourish of shitake mushrooms, hazelnuts and a red-wine sauce. Even better was the dressed lobster and shrimp ($14), which was chilled with avocado and roasted tomatoes, giving the dish a wonderfully silky texture.
The bar crowd will adore the French onion soup ($8), which isn’t encumbered by a sense of subtlety and overflows with rich, cheesy elasticity. We would have preferred a bit more onion in there, but the decadence of it made up for that.
In keeping with the desire to appeal to the casual diner, a few sandwiches, mostly burgers of some kind, appear on the entrée menu. In an uncharacteristically safe move, we opted for the grilled chicken sandwich ($13), which, as mainstream sandwiches go, was simply flawless, with bacon, pesto aoli and Swiss cheese.
Our inner fine diner was starting to sulk at this point, so we went for the sea scallops ($22), which had the added pleasure of sharing the plate with a lovely crispy pork belly and parmesan risotto. Those three together were perfection. We were lucky to get to try the shrimp crab ravioli, as the popular dish was flying out the doors that night. Bisou’s take on the dish veered in a more rustic direction, with a wealth of peas and asparagus competing for our affection in the lemon-cream sauce. We also appreciate how well the shrimp and crab stood out inside the ravioli. This was no indistinct mash of a filling, as the flavors and textures of crab and shrimp were hearty and very distinct.
We remember the menu of their old incarnation being more eye-catching and adventurous, but we can’t find anything to complain about with Bisou’s new look and menu. They have found a happy middle ground between the refined dishes of their recent past and the more comfort-food-inspired dishes they now have to appeal to the diverse patrons of the area.