We fall in love with people, but what about places and things? Can a city capture our heart? Can we entertain a romance with a certain street? What about a particular restaurant? Boys have broken my heart but a good Champagne has never done me any measurable amount of harm. Men may come and go, but a good steak never disappoints me. Chocolate has certainly never once made me cry. Is it safer, or perhaps even better, to give our hearts to places and things rather than people? Could this lead us to the most fulfilling love affairs of our lives? Maybe for some. Maybe for me. I fear these are questions that can only be answered by the passing of time. All I know is that today my heart is singing for Petite Chou Bistro & Champagne Bar.
Tucked away in a little Indianapolis neighborhood that deftly walks the tightrope between chic and quaint, Petite Chou is situated along a peaceful canal. This restaurant is French enough to attract a closet Francophile (ie: your friendly neighborhood food and wine blogger) yet approachable enough to not scare off other clientele who are, perhaps, less enamored with upscale food cooked with gobs of delicious butter. When approaching the host stand, you’ll feel as though you’re walking through something imagined by Wes Anderson; an enclosed patio with outdoor seating bedecked with walls of colorful flowers giving way to a dark, elegant indoor dining area with velvet accents and Champagne buckets at the ready. Even the menus boast a very ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ font and color palette. This place has an incredibly assertive style that you will either embrace or not. Personally, I was happy to throw my arms around it and call it my new home away from home.
As a Champagne bar, Petite Chou offers three varieties of Laurent Perrier Champagne, a number of sparkling wines, and additionally an enticing list of Champagne cocktails. A girl who typically knows exactly what she wants, I began my adventure by ordering a glass of their Laurent Perrier 2008 vintage Champagne: secretly, I knew that this was what I was going to order before I ever glanced at a menu. Vintage Champagne isn’t something that I get to enjoy very often so, even at $28 a glass, this was not something I was prepared to let pass me by. I was captivated by the crisp acidity of this wine, balanced nicely with the yeasty notes we expect from a Champagne. Petite Chou serves their Champagne in coupes instead of flutes, which I appreciate both aesthetically and for the sake of being able to more fully enjoy the aromas of the Champagne. What you do miss when you eschew a flute for a coupe is some of the visual effects of the Champagne bubbles seemingly endlessly running up the sides of the glass; but this isn’t a feature that I miss terribly. (Flute glasses are kind of, in a sense, dumb. I won’t get started on that today. But, maybe try drinking your Champagne from a solo cup instead of a flute. It will probably be a more fulfilling experience: truly!) Pro tip: on the Wednesday evening that I was there, they were offering half priced bottles of wine. If you live close enough to Indianapolis and/or have enough friends who would split a bottle with you, this is beyond an excellent deal and I urge you to take advantage of this. Sadly, I wasn’t up for drinking a bottle alone and my companion for the evening had no intention of drinking alcohol before our two-ish hour trek back to Fort Wayne. C’est la vie!
I began my meal with a simple green salad. It was, as the name suggested, simple: but divine. When simple, limited ingredients can be put together in a way that allows them to shine and excite: that is truly art for the palette. Greens, herbs, and a bit of Dijon vinaigrette were, in my opinion, the perfect bite to begin my evening. True, I like a good salad. True, I am weirdly obsessed with mustards, with Dijon leading the pack by a large margin. Perhaps this makes me slightly biased. My dining mate opted for the slightly more obvious choice: Onion Soup Gratinée. Typically, when we dine together, we play very nicely and will offer each other multiple bites so that we each get a very full, well-rounded dining experience. I was not offered a single bite of soup and I am still pouting about it. Apparently, it was too good to share. So, while I can’t assure you that the soup is excellent, you’ll have to trust my dining companion who tells me it was heavenly. Watching my dinner buddy stretching luscious, gooey, stringing cheesy spoonfuls of onion soup was torture and I fear I shall never recover from the ordeal. Luckily, we had an order of Gruyère Gougères to share, and they were yummy enough to help ease my pain. Served with a small side of mornay for dipping, these gougères are perhaps not as high and fully puffed as some that I’ve previously enjoyed, but what they lack in height they make up for in flavor. A tender pâte à choux kiss entangled with a suckerpunch of Gruyère; these little bites are buttery, cheesy, and sinfully perfect.
Choosing an entrée was one of the most difficult choices I ever had to make in my life; they all sounded beyond fantastic. There is a Knife & Fork burger on their menu with Camembert, Bordelaise, and arugula–some day, I will make this burger mine. While dining, I heard other customers (who I assume were locals) raving about how good the brunch at Petite Chou is. The Knife & Fork burger just happens to be on both the brunch and dinner menus, so there’s no doubt that I’ll be returning at my earliest convenience to try their brunch and to partake in this sexy, mammoth burger. As for the dinner that I chose, I ordered the Lobster and Frites. My dining companion elected to get the Steak and Frites. Our thought: if we share a few bites, we basically both got surf and turf! Win! I’ve been very skeptical about ordering any sort of seafood since moving to the Midwest. Let’s be fair: y’all aren’t known for it. I felt safe with my choice to try the 8oz lobster tail at Petite Chou and nothing about it disappointed. Honestly, my tail was gorgeous, slightly larger than I expected it to be, and the frites were salty, crisp, and addictive. The tarragon butter to accompany my lobster tail was, without question, the perfect accompaniment. All the while, I was still sipping a glass of vintage Champagne that paired beautifully with all of my food! As for my companion’s meal, I was again jealous. The strip steak with Maître d’Hôtel Butter was godlike: cooked to perfection with exactly the right amount of gorgeous pink throughout, the compound butter made each bite beyond decadent, and it had just the right amount of salt to allow the flavors to burst on your palette like a supernova while leaving you craving another bite. Seriously, I would sleep on their doorstep and devote my entire life to consuming nothing but the food and Champagne at Petite Chou: if only I could.
While I had intended to consume only one glass of Champagne on this particular evening, plans changed because I’m a very nice girl and I have a birthday coming up. For dessert, I opted for a glass of the Laurent Perrier Brut Rosé Champagne. Of the Champagne on offer, this is the most expensive sip clocking in at $33 for a glass or $110 for a bottle. My friend, it was worth it. This Champagne is lush and fruitful with strawberries and raspberries on the nose. The restaurant was relatively dark by the time I ordered my final glass of Champagne for the evening, but in the dim light I found the gorgeous pink color to be truly breathtaking. I would have been happy to end my meal here; but we opted to split the profiteroles at the suggestion of our charming waitress. (She was new to dinner service at Petite Chou and, despite being new, she was an absolute angel and made the evening perfect!) The profiteroles were, you guessed it, delicious. Three perfectly round spheres of crisp pâte à choux pastry flanking sweet, cold vanilla ice cream, and all drizzled in a succulent chocolate sauce. I ate only one. I was, technically speaking, completely “full.” But if you put a sweet in front of me, I’m not going to ignore it!
While it is a bit of a hike for me, and it’s certainly not the sort of place that I could comfortably afford to eat at every day of the week, Petite Chou Bistro & Champagne Bar has stolen my heart. Were my time and funds unlimited, I would truly dine there endlessly. The atmosphere, food, and beverages are all irreproachable. The staff are lovely and attentive. Years ago, when I was still an East Coast dweller, had you told me that a place like Petite Chou existed in Indiana, I would have called you a liar. I would have found it hard to believe that a place as whimsical yet elegant existed anywhere; let alone the Midwest. Yet here we are. Petite Chou Bistro & Champagne Bar is a reality and it has absolutely stolen my heart.
Plonk & Pleasure 
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