Baltimore Magazine - March 2008
Best Restaurants 2008
Petit Louis Bistro
This charming restaurant revels in the ambiance of a friendly neighborhood wine bar in France, except there are no dogs accompanying their masters like you see there...focus on fine French comfort food and excellent selection of French wines by the glass and bottle. The wait staff is helpful on both accounts. You can count on Louis’s famous onion soup, a flavorful broth with just the right amount of onion and gooey Gruyere, and the duck foie gras, classically prepared with a layer of duck fat on top and served with buttery crostini...Bistro mainstays like steak frites with a generous mound of crispy fries, and coquilles St. Jacques in a light wine sauce are true to form. End in style with cups of French roast and a decadent chocolate pâté with crème anglaise, or a delectable crème caramel.
Baltimore Magazine - Local Flavor - February 2008
Light My Fire
Restaurant Fireplaces Add Spark to Romance
Suzanne Loudermilk
There's something about a crackling fire in winter that stirs the appetite--for romance. Add good food, a glass of wine, and a great companion, and what could be a better recipe for Valentine's Day? Several area restaurants offer all those ingredients, including Petit Louis Bistro... Diane Feffer Neas, a restaurant consultant, explains part of the fascination. "There's a thing about the glow," she says. "People look beautiful in the glow of a fireplace..." "Anything illuminated by a flame is what people look for," Neas says. "It's a picture people have in their minds, part of the romanticism we believe.
City Search - Best Of City Search - February 2007
Audience Winner - Best French Fries
You voted for the best French Fries in Baltimore, and we counted.
Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence, 2006, 2007, 2008
Baltimore City Paper - October 2006
Out to Brunch
Sunday Pleasures At Tony Neighborhood Bistro
Brunch is back. All over town, open for brunch banners are going up. Roland Park’s Petit Louis has been running a Sunday brunch for a few months now, and while the place might be packed to the rafters at its midday brunch peak, it’s only about half full of savvy patrons on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps humidity slows down word of mouth, which isn’t such a bad thing. The dining room’s noise level is the prevailing Petit Louis complaint that travels around town--some diners find it not to be the euphonious hum of civilization but merely a din. At least for now, Sunday afternoons in the beautifully appointed rooms--cheers for stained glass, gleaming wood floors, and marble tables set with reassuring amenities such as porcelain salt cellars and cream pitchers--are relaxing and sweet.
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Baltimore City Paper
EATS Section
Petit Louis Bistro has come to effortlessly inhabit its role as a smart urban bistro. The clanging noise made by urban diners is music to the ears…
Baltimore Magazine-50 Best Restaurants February 2006
Best French Restaurant
Petit Louis restaurant is the neighborhood restaurant of our dreams: fabulous wine list, great French bistro food, lively crowds, top notch service. We always like to start with something rich, like the salad of frisée laced with lardons and bleu cheese and topped with a poached egg, or the estimable terrine de foie gras with toast points. The duck-leg confit is always satisfying, but traditionalists can opt for the fine version of steak fries, the crispy fries popping out from their paper cone. If a lighter meal is more your style, a simple but perfect omelette or croque monsieur may be just the thing. Be sure, though to save some room for the sinful, chocolatey pot de crème or the trio of homemade sorbets. Topped off with a glass of Beaumes de Venise Muscat, this is an excellent way to end an evening of neighborhood warmth with bon vivant.
EAT – City Paper’s Best of Baltimore – September 2005
Best Fancy Restaurant
For the past six years, we have used every excuse in the book to dine at Petit Louis: birthdays, anniversaries (which they do so well, even giving us complimentary glasses of sparkling wine on our last one), New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day. Whatever the occasion, the service, food, and atmosphere are topnotch without being overly stuffy. This is the place to take your out-of-town friends who don’t realize that Baltimore has more to it than gritty streets and a prefab waterfront. Located in Roland Park, which looks convincingly like the fancy neighborhoods of Northwest D.C., your folks/friends will be in awe that, yes, Baltimore has rich people too. And because the restaurant is situated in a historical Beaux-Arts building, complete with leaded glass windows, dark hardwood trim, and a gorgeous dining room, locals will be excited to not be eating in yet another cramped rowhouse with exposed brick.
Petit Louis may not be the “fanciest” of the fancy restaurants in Baltimore, but it wins out over the competition because it doesn’t have to try nearly as hard to get impressive results. It’s French without being oppressively snooty or ridiculously expensive. Don’t speak French? Don’t worry, many of the servers here don’t either, but will patiently explain each dish in enticing detail. And what dishes they are. Every meal we’ve had here couldn’t have been more perfect, melting in our mouths like butter. Add a bottle or two of the country reds from the extensive wine list, and the only bad thing about eating at Petit Louis is the dreaded “French food hangover” you get the next morning from over doing it on rich food and wine.
EAT – City Paper’s Best of Baltimore – September 2005
Best Fries
OK, so French bistro doesn’t automatically make you think fries in the strict fries and a burger sense. And Petit Louis calling them “frites” doesn’t help matters, but their fries are French, as in the real-deal French fries as only the French (and Belgian) can do them-long, thin, and crisp yet tender on the inside. Petit Louis serves them in a cornet (a large paper cone in a cast-iron stand), and the generous helping might be enough for two to share, but better order an extra just in case.
EAT – City Paper’s Dining Guide – March 2005
Classy but approachable Petit Louis is the perfect neighborhood restaurant for old-fashioned, shabby-around-the-edges Roland Park: the classic French bistro fare, while excellently prepared, offers no surprises. The menu is both sophisticated and relatively affordable, and the atmosphere cozy. In short, it’s kind of like (neighborhood resident) Anne Tyler’s Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant with escargots and tarte alsacienne a l’oignon.”
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