Blog What the hell is a bistro?

So many restaurants call themselves bistros now—even Pizza Hut has helped itself to the term—that it feels like the restaurant equivalent of going, "Look, the place is nice, alright? So just shut up and eat here already!" In its classic definition, a bistro is simply a small European restaurant that serves inexpensive food and drink, often stays open late, and typically offers sidewalk seating. But a survey of a few local restaurants suggests that the word is less than carefully considered around Madison. After seeing a Vietnamese "bistro" and American-food "bistro" open up in town, Decider asked around to find out if the term actually means anything anymore—or is just an attempt to sound vaguely European.

Monroe Street Bistro is smallish, open late, and serves European food—all promising indicators. Decider checked in to ask, “What makes your restaurant a bistro?” The sous chef, Heather Agard, paused before answering, "In all this time, I've never been asked that question.... We are a neighborhood pub, specializing in Belgian ales. We serve a lot of local foods—we're kind of a gastropub." Makes sense—that term was coined to refer to British pubs that serve fancy meals in place of the usual toad in the hole, blood sausage, and kidney pie—but "gastropub" doesn't bring the same elegant, knowing punch to a restaurant's sign, does it?

The new Old Market Bistro downtown offered this explanation for using the term in a telephone call: "A bistro, if you look it up in the dictionary, is considered a small nightspot or café. I think we fit that definition," says kitchen crew chief Billy Williams. But the food is decidedly American (with the pastas as European as it gets) and the room is more “former pizzeria” than “nightspot or café,” which makes sense, as it is in the barely retooled former home of a pizzeria. But again, it seems the word "bistro" on the restaurant's awning helps to lend a sophisticated air.

Even the recently opened Ha Long Bay on Willy Street calls itself a bistro, despite being a roomy spot with plush seating arrangements (and none outside) and having a menu devoted to Vietnamese and Thai food. There’s absolutely nothing “bistro” about it, suggesting again that the word is more about projecting the general aura of "somewhat fancy cuisine in a cozy setting."

Perhaps throwing the B-word all about is appropriate here in the Midwest, and perhaps it's aspirational and rather silly. In any case, it would seem the word has traveled from its romantic Parisian roots to just being one of those things Americans say—preferably over Asian or contemporary American cuisine, of course.