100 Very Best Restaurant 2016: Petit Louis Bistro

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Petit Louis Bistro. Photograph by Scott Suchman

About Petit Louis Bistro

Cost:

cuisines
French
Location(s)
10215 Wincopin Cir
Columbia, MD 21044

Chef Cindy Wolf and partner Tony Foreman, known for Baltimore’s Charleston restaurant, nail the French bistro at this lakeside dining room with gilt mirrors and globe lanterns. The menu boasts smartly turned out classics including foie gras terrine, pommes Anna, and duck-leg confit. Apéritifs (like the pleasantly bitter, acid-yellow Suze d’Autrefois) and a long list of French wines with excellent by-the-glass offerings mean the crowd at the bar is often three deep. Desserts are nice enough, but if it’s either/or, the cheese cart is the way to go.

Don’t miss: Shrimp beignets; beet salad; croque monsieur; saffron mussels; lamb with vegetable couscous; roast chicken; chicken-leg confit; pear sorbet.

See what other restaurants made our 100 Very Best Restaurants list. This article appears in our February 2016 issue of Washingtonian.


Ann Limpert
Executive Food Editor/Critic

Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.

Food Editor

Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.