Beyond the Plate: Bistro Byronz

A food-focused series on the established places around the area whose flavors and atmospheres keep us coming back for seconds (and twenty-seconds).

I've got just one regret about my summer trip to Paris: I brought the palate of a rube. Just freed from my sophomore year of college, my jangling euros were hotly spent at museums and on replenishing my métro pass but barely glowed as we twisted through open-air markets and glided through the flour mists of boulangerie doorways. While I missed out on most epicurean delights—ones I would quite franc-ly die for now as an occasionally snooty home cook and food photographer—I did have one quick-draw sentence in my arsenal: Une bière et un plat de pommes frites, s'il vous plaît. A beer, a plate of fries. I was happy.

In Baton Rouge, Bistro Byronz provides the closest glimpse of that sophistiqué French flavor that infused my trip abroad, despite my best efforts. Among the chocolate wood tabletops and floors, clean corners, and windows that lavish the place with light, I'm transported overseas to the quiet cafés where I indulged in my own way. Replace the pommes frites with homestyle chicken, hammered thin, grilled moist, and strewn with a trail of green onions. Roasted potatoes balmy with onion on one side, thick and juicy roasted vegetables (all in season) on the other. Bite after bite, the boldest flavor my fork speared was that European confidence in earth's bounty. And it all still tastes great washed down with une bière.