Best Restaurant Comeback

Things were looking up for Jacques Ardisson and his daughter Carla Lou. They had decided to close their longtime downtown restaurant Indochine and replace it with LouLou, a French bistro. But the head chef of the new venture left shortly after the conversion, and things went downhill from there. Rather than sit around wringing their hands, they brought in Victor Passalacqua, who trained with guys named Paul Bocuse and Alain Ducasse, and who played a key role in some of Miami's best restaurants (Le Festival, La Dorada, etc.). Passalacqua replaced the kitchen crew with pros he'd worked with in the past. Then, in tandem with Jacques and Carla Lou, he rewrote the menu and introduced alluring lunchtime specials (sandwich with soup or salad, $9.50; soup, salad, or appetizer with entrée and dessert, $15). The turnaround in cuisine is dramatic. Take the eight-ounce filet mignon with homemade foie gras and haricots verts ($32). It and other dishes — such as mussels in white wine with creamed shallots and herbs, served with house-made pommes frites ($16) — prove LouLou is a whole newnew bistro.

Source: Miami New Times

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