Critic Finds Perfectly Cooked Omelet in the South End

Fine French Food at Bar Lyon

For The Improper Bostonian, MC Slim JB samples the menu at Bar Lyon, the South End’s new French restaurant. With older siblings including the fancy French bistro Mistral, Bar Lyon has cut its own path as a less dressy yet still polished spot that celebrates regional French cuisine, Slim writes. Among the highlights: rosette de Lyon, or pork saucisson with red wine mustard, and gougères choux pastry puffs with Gruyere and bacon, as well as a terrine Lyonnaise en croûte that is “delectable” in its “tenderly baked” pastry crust.

The main course omelet is “so perfectly baveuse” that it prompted Slim to share a photo with a friend from Paris, and the quenelle de brochet is a showstopper of a fish “sieved into almost custardy smoothness,” he writes.

A Gem of a Restaurant in Southie

For the Dig, Marc Hurwitz visits Publico Street Bistro & Garden, a nearly two-year-old restaurant in South Boston serving a mix of American and Mediterranean dishes. The place is under the radar, and to say it serves good food would be an understatement, Hurwitz writes. There’s “something for everyone,” including sourdough buns with a kick of espelette chiles, “addictive” yucca fries, and fried mahi mahi tacos. He also calls attention to Publico’s grilled pork chop with a “mouthwateringly rich demi-glace” and recommends splurging on the seared sea scallop paella or the Argentinian meat platter. Overall, Hurwitz writes, Publico is a “quiet, out-of-the-way restaurant,” and “you might want to get to this place sooner rather than later.”

• Belle Bouchon [Improper]
• First Look: Publico Street Bistro & Garden [DigBoston]