One of our favorite restaurants in DC is undoubtedly The Dabney that masterfully showcases Mid-Atlantic cuisine from local ingredients. Every time we visited the restaurant, my wife Jun and I were thoroughly impressed with the careful selection of ingredients and attention to execution that could rival most of the fine dining restaurants in the country. For chef Jeremiah Langhorne, expanding from his crown jewel to open a bistro based on memories from his trips to France must’ve been quite an adventure. According to chef Jeremiah, however, a French concept had always been his mind out of his respect for the French cuisine. This past summer, Jun and I visited Petite Cerise, and while it wasn’t quite at the level of The Dabney, we still found a lot to like about the new project.

Petite Cerise is not just another French bistro serving the most cliché dishes like steak frites. Instead, what you see in the restaurant is chef Jeremiah’s idea of how French food should be prepared with the same winning formula from The Dabney: the best ingredients and exceptional care to execution. If you were impressed with vegetable dishes from The Dabney like we had always been, you will see a very delicious plate of fried squash blooms with sungold tomato; what I certainly didn’t expect was the silky soft scallop mousse inside that greatly enhanced the texture of the squash. Since it was a softshell crab season during our visit, we felt compelled to order one at Petite Cerise, and with hollandaise sauce, my only pet peeve was I had to share this with my wife!

For the main dish, I was a huge fan of rockfish with ratatouille and summer squash; the fish was very skillfully pan fried and the combination of ratatouille was spot-on, making me almost feel like I was dining somewhere in coastal France in the summer. On the other hand, the beef sirloin was one of the few misses at the restaurant; Jun was somewhat surprised that the texture wasn’t quite up to the standard she had expected. For dessert, you could never go wrong with a decadent dish like profiterole with vanilla ice cream and candied pistachio. We loved it a lot more than the other dessert we had ordered, a plate of mille crepe cake whose layer of crepes we found to be rather on the thicker side. Admittedly, we had been so used to the ultra-thin layers of crepe cakes from the famed Lady M pastry shop; Jun remarked that she felt she was eating a savory version of breakfast crepe instead of a dessert.

Getting a reservation at Petite Cerise doesn’t seem to be as challenging as The Dabney at the moment but the restaurant was by no means empty when we visited for an early dinner on Saturday so I would still recommend making a reservation in advance. Unlike The Dabney, the wine list is exclusively French across most of the famous regions in the country like Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhone. I really liked the bright décor of the dining space that displayed a bit lighter vibe in contrast to The Dabney’s darker interior, which really makes Petite Cerise a particularly attractive place to visit for summer dining. DC is having a mini boom of new French restaurants in the last couple of years, and Petite Cerise is definitely one of the standouts among these newcomers. I am very intrigued to see how the restaurant’s menu develops over time and would love to visit again in different seasons.

KenScale: 8.0/10 (Jun’s Score: 7.75/10)

Address: 1027 7th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

Website: https://www.petitecerisedc.com/

Reservation via Resy