Sense and the City: Two bartenders raise the bar for great service

Bijou Cafe, at the corner of 1st and Pineapple streets

Last Saturday night, I was wistfully recalling a summer spent in Paris and decided to check out the bar at Bijou Café, a corner restaurant on 1st Street directly across from Selby Library, for a mid-summer’s eve drink.  Bijou — French for “jewel” — is Continental cuisine with the accent on French; that was enough for me and I headed downtown.

Bijou’s charming, ivy-covered walls and cozy outdoor patio brought back memories of afternoons in Paris when I’d leave the office on Boulevard Haussmann where I worked, and take a late lunch at a tiny restaurant where the owner would bring a platter of meats and cheeses and bread and leave me alone in all my gastronomic ecstasy.  Bijou’s exterior is so enchanting, I wanted to see if the inside would be as soigné yet unpretentious and welcoming as my little Paris bistro had been.

It was.  Bijou’s bar was intimate and luxurious but relaxed.  I could have lived without the TV set which was on and tuned to baseball, but, in America, c’est la vie.   The bartender — Rob Vanderberg — was kind of a gem himself, with a fetching South African accent and an impeccable ease with customers not often found in Sarasota.  He whipped up my “Amaretto in a short glass with rocks and a dash of Sprite,” to perfection, and when I asked permission to snap his photo for my column, he introduced me to owner JP Knaggs, who’s been running Bijou for the last 25 years — no small feat in Sarasota’s somewhat fickle restaurant scene.

Russo

I plan to go back for a meal as soon as I can; the menu’s wild mushroom and Gruyère grilled cheese sandwich and pommes Dauphinois have me dying for their cheesy decadence. I almost opted for dinner there that night, but instead headed toward Hillview to check out Sam Snead’s, where I haven’t been for quite some time.

The food at Snead’s is reliably good, but the service has occasionally left something to be desired.  Not so, now; at least not in the bar, where I ordered up crab cakes and a glass of perfectly chilled Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from the new bartender on tap — John Russo, formerly of First Street Chop House.

Vanderberg

Known to many as the “Singing Bartender,” Russo seems to have raised the bar for great service — he knows when to tell a quick joke and when to focus on making sure folks’ glasses are filled and meals are up to par.  With his good looks and laid-back but professional personality, Russo’s presence bodes well for those of us who rank service as important as food.

Before I left, Russo, who’s originally from New York, told me he’s been living la vida local for 13 years now … and loving every minute of it.  “A bad day in Sarasota is better than a good day anywhere else,” he said.

I can’t say I disagree.

– Last week, I reported that today’s is Women’s Equity Day – it’s actually tomorrow, Aug. 26.  Write MC at mcrealityonline@yahoo.com.