French. Pizza.
Riverbend: 7918 Maple. 504-866-9551. Map.
Dinner seven days.
Casual
Cash or checks only.
Website
WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
The intention of the owners was to create a charming, rustic, and very French bistro, full of the aromas, herbs, olive oil, and seafood of Provence. But they were never able to persuade their customers to stop ordering the pizzas that were baked here for decades. So they kept making them. They are adept at both specialties.
WHY IT'S GOOD
The pizzas are New York-style pies with thin crusts with a thinner crisp layer at the bottom. The sauce is lusty in its use of garlic and herbs, and the cheese and toppings are first-class--some of the best pizza in town. But the other cooking is right up there with the work of other French bistros in town. The mussels, steak with fresh-cut fries, fish dishes, and particularly the daily specials are marvelous.
BACKSTORY
Ciro’s made excellent old-style, thin-crust pizzas on Maple Street for decades, in a minimal space that suited the college clientele just fine. (I was one of them, in the late 1960s.) In 1997, Chef Ollivier Guiot and his wife Sophie--natives of the South of France--renovated Ciro's with the idea of opening a Provençal bistro. The new name Cote Sud ("south coast") captured it perfectly. The unexpected turn was the need to keep the pizza operation going. Too many customers wanted it.
DINING ROOM
A heavily-remodeled former cottage became a long, narrow room extending from big windows in front to a bar and the kitchen in the rear. It's pleasant but not fancy. The clientele now spans the entire range from the college crowd to the older residents of the neighborhood. The staff is young and speaks French nicely. The chef is in and out of the dining room, chatting up the regulars.
ESSENTIAL DISHES
The dish names are in French on the menu. I'm using the English names here.
Escargots de Bourgogne
Mussels gratinee
Oysters baked in a blue cheese butter sauce
Charcuterie and cheese plates
Onion soup gratinee
Green salad with avocado
Salad with pears
Salad topped with warm goat cheese
Salad with frog legs
Mussels mariniere, or with curry or blue cheese sauce
Salmon with creamed spinach
Fish of the day
Cornish hen wrapped with bacon
Magret of duck (breast) with peaches
Petite filet mignon with blue cheese
Hanger steak with fries
Lamb chops with herbes de Provence
Pork tenderloin encrusted with mustard
Pasta with seafood
Pizza (any style)
Tarte Tatin a la mode
Creme caramel or Creme brulee
Pear Belle Helene
FOR BEST RESULTS
Have the pizza as an appetizer for the table the first time, but don't consider it an essential order for every visit. Too many other first courses and entrees vie for your attention. The daily specials are usually the best dishes every night.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The cash-or-check payment policy is an absurd inconvenience to enforce upon customers, and causes one to order less food and wine than one otherwise might. (How much cash is in your pocket right now?)
FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.
- Dining Environment +1
- Consistency +2
- Service +2
- Value +1
- Attitude +1
- Wine and Bar +1
- Hipness +1
- Local Color +2
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
- Sidewalk tables
- Romantic
- Open Sunday dinner
- Open Monday dinner
- Good for children
- Easy, nearby parking
- Reservations accepted
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
The role of pizza in restaurant dining has expanded far from the depths of convenience food and inexpensive Italian restaurants to the upper reaches of the culinary arts. When chefs like John Besh and Carmelo Chirico build big restaurants with pizza as a mainstay, it's not just for kids anymore.
Ciro's Cote Sud is proof of just how true this is. Pizza and French food came together here as an accident, but new trends in cooking and dining caught up with them. Now the idea of pizza and moules et frites sharing the same menu doesn't seem strange at all.
This review was updated with new information on 7/7/2010.
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