It’s been an eventful 2025 for Petaluma’s Table Culture Provisions. This spring, the fine-dining, tasting menu-only restaurant garnered a recommendation from the Michelin Guide. And last month, the team behind it opened a sister establishment, Bijou.
Just a half mile a way, Bijou is a casual French bistro with Sonoma sensibilities that’s three times the size of Table Culture Provisions.
Opened by Co-Chefs and Co-Owners Stephane Saint Louis and Steven Vargas, along with Saint Louis’ wife Marta, it offers a compact a la carte menu, which I had a chance to try last month.
Done up in light, neutral colors, the restaurant was barely open a week yet the place was packed on a Thursday night, with folks coming in to dine as late as 9 p.m. in this quiet Wine Country town.
The cocktail program here makes it hard not to imbibe when it’s this creative. The Boulevadier ($15) is like a Negroni but with gin swapped out for rye instead and Cappelletti added to deepen the orange peel taste.
The Golden Hour ($15) blends the unlikely combination of tequila, Amaretto, bitters, maple syrup, carrot juice, and cinnamon-scented horchata for a most memorable sip that would be fantastic at brunch time, too. The taste is reminiscent of a smoothie, albeit with a much lighter body. It finishes with almost the taste of almond jello. I couldn’t get enough of it.
A half dozen Miyagi oysters ($24), with their delicate melon, cucumber and mineral notes, are a great way to start, arriving with classic Champagne vinegar mignonette and its own mini bottle of Tabasco.
Most tables were enjoying house-made potato chips with creamy onion dip ($8). Who can blame them when they are this addictive and satisfying?
Parker House rolls ($12) are dreamy fluffs with a sweet-salty taste that get a hit of savoriness from the cultured butter.
The menu undergoes additions and subtractions almost daily. If you spot the petit croque ($16), order one immediately. A Black Forest ham sandwich, it comes smothered in warm, melted Gruyere with grated Australian black truffle all over the top. It is nutty tasting from the cheese with the ham adding a sweet porcine depth. It is rich and decadent, and simply not to be missed.
From the four mains, I went with the daily catch, which this evening was white sea bass ($32), its crisp skin adorned with crispy kale. The moist fish rested on a sauce of buttery, creamy leeks with capers. The dish came with a side of risotto, which had the lovely floral, earthy taste of saffron and the sweetness of fresh peas, but lacked the starchy emulsification that creates the requisite creaminess of the rice.
The duck cannette ($38) was juicy and tender, with the breast slices arrayed with cherries on the plate. It was also a relative bargain, as it came with a simple lemon-olive oil-dressed salad on the side, as well as its own individual crock of pommes Dauphinois with the layers of buttery, creamy potatoes crisp on top and tender within.
From the two desserts, we chose the crackling crisp millefeuille ($12) with its stacked layers of deeply caramelized puff pastry interspersed with vanilla cream and caramel. A pinch of sea salt provided the perfect balance to this toasty, toffee-flavored treat.
You know it’s good when you first stab a fork into it and its firm baked layers shatter into multiple shards.
And you know you’ve come to the right place when you feel so comfortable at the end of the evening that you don’t want to leave.
