Shawn Raecke/Idaho Statesman Kate Seward, of Nampa, enjoys a glass of wine and appetizers with friends at La Belle Vie, a new French-influenced restaurant in downtown Nampa
La Belle Vie is a charming new restaurant housed in a nearly century-old, former downtown Nampa home. The fact that it sits across the street from a sprawling brick warehouse only heightens the charm. After all, that contrast of urban nicety and industrial funk gives Nampa and much of Canyon County a kind of built-in culinary character that has real, if not often realized, potential.
Step from La Belle Vie’s porch through its front door and you’ll find hardwood floors, framed prints, solid wood furnishings and a cozy color palette that drifts from light mocha to dark espresso. It’s serene and elegant.
The menu is also elegant, in the sense that it’s thoughtfully restrained. The breakfast and lunch selections are relatively small. In the morning there’s oatmeal, granola, quiches, breakfast sandwiches and pastries. For lunch there’s soup, salad, quiches, sandwiches, a burger and a mac ‘n’ cheese grandly titled “Gratin de Macaronis Americain.”
Most of the fare isn’t more rigorously French than that mac ‘n’ cheese (instead, I’d call it contemporary American in the Silver Palate mode, which of course has French influences) – but that Gratin de Macaronis Americain ($9/lunch) by any other name would taste as starchy-cheesy good. In fact, the combination of colby, cheddar and elbow macaroni capped with a crunchy breadcrumb crust had me wishing it was offered for breakfast with, say, a poached egg on top.
La Belle Vie also is adept at soups and salads. The sausage, potato and leek soup that came with my mac ‘n’ cheese had the clear, clean flavor of a truly handmade broth; a coconut and carrot puree ($4.50/cup la carte) was subtle and nuanced (though my lunch-mate thought it needed a drop or two of lemon). The chevre salad ($4.50/lunch or dinner) arrived with three tasty rounds of pecan-crusted goat cheese over fresh greens mixed with dried cranberries and a tangy vinaigrette.
This 3-month-old cafe is the dream of avid cooks, caterers and first-time restaurateurs Julie Free and Cathy O’Connell. Thanks to a little serendipity, the two were brought together by a mutual friend who then designed the cafe’s interior. O’Connell says she and Free chose a limited menu because “we wanted to make sure that what we did make was really, really good, and if we made too many things we couldn’t make them all really good.”
In keeping with that tight focus, the dinner menu is also limited to around four entrees that change every month and, at least in the cool season, focuses on braised, baked and roasted dishes. During my late February visit, the choices were pot roast ($18), chicken with 40 cloves of garlic ($16), salmon in pappiotte ($20) and, again, the mac ‘n’ cheese ($12).
Shawn Raecke/Idaho Statesman Chicken Marbella. Quarter of a chicken with prunes, green olives and capers braised in white wine. Served with a twice-baked potato and asparagus. $17
The fork-tender pot roast – surrounded with sweet pearl onions, roughly mashed potatoes, roasted carrot spears and a thyme-spiked pan juice – was very good in a straightforward, down-home way. The chicken – with a nice nest of roasted haricot verts, cherry tomatoes and caramelized garlic – was, again, good, if a little overcooked. The Hollandaise-napped salmon – in its festive, parchment wrapping – was perfectly fine, too, but not stunning. And the mac ‘n’ cheese was, well, you already know.
Now this tepid critique of dinner was, at least in part, the work of a little negative serendipity: a server failed to show on that busy Friday night, and O’Connell was left to pick up the slack on the floor. Service was slow, there were mix-ups in the kitchen and, likely, it wasn’t the restaurant’s best night to shine.
Thankfully, a lemon tart dessert ($5) was excellent, as were previous lunchtime sweets from scratch including a buttery pecan bar and a moist and dangerously rich espresso cake ($4/each).
In light of my evening visit, I’d say there’s room for improvement at La Belle Vie. But the concept is solid, the room is inviting and there’s ample potential for this to become one of the Valley’s most appealing restaurants.
For more on this story go to the Idaho Statesman at: http://bit.ly/9q90iC
|
Guy Hand is a writer, public radio producer and photographer specializing in food and agriculture. |
