The dreamy and oh-so cheesy petit croque with black truffles at the new Bijou.
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.
The dining room.The chic bar.
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.
That provided the seed money not only to kick-start a successful fried chicken pop-up during the pandemic, but allowed them to generate enough funds to open their first restaurant, Table Culture Provisions in Petaluma in November 2020.
The restaurant, which has garnered glowing reviews, sports a teeny dining room and an equally tiny outdoor dining patio.
So, it comes as no surprise that Table Culture Provisions would soon find itself needing more space. As such, it will be moving to a much larger location around the corner later this summer that will feature prix fixe and a la carte menus. Its current location will remain open, as a laboratory of sorts for more forward-pushing tasting menus.
That’s what I gleaned when I dined recently at the spare and elegant little space done up with denim-colored walls.
A view of the chefs from the dining room.
The chefs in the kitchen are visible behind a row of windows that look onto the dining room. Given the space limitations, it’s rather remarkable the elegant, elevated food that comes out to the table.
