Poppy's French Bistro — Restaurant in Collingwood

Collingwood has upped its game with some really interesting food spots of late. We've tried three in the last few weeks. Last evening we tried Poppy's. Poppy's is in a restored century building, a lovely spot with a generous sized patio, nice decor and atmosphere with very attentive staff and good food presentation.

The restaurant is adorable and looks like it was picked out of the pages of Pinterest on how a French Bistro should look. The food is OK. It's not horrible but not quite French Bistro quality. I really wanted to give more stars for the food but as someone who has frequented some great French Bistro's ( it is one of my favourite styles of food) It's not there.

We started with the Vol au Vent with mushroom and chicken. It had good taste and depth of flavour but the puff pastry was a bit soggy and definitely tasted pre-baked. It also didn't taste like it was made in house. There wasn't that crispy sound and when you cut in with flakes of pastry everywhere. The Paté de Maison was good but a bit strong on the liver taste. It needed something to temper that taste.

Mains were good but... The Coq au Vin had overcooked veg and the sauce should have been richer and thicker consistency. It's Coq au Vin not chicken soup. The chicken was moist and had good flavour but a bit oversalted.

The Steak Frites. The most important dish in any French Bistro. Meat was good and cooked to my order but not sure what a "California cut" is and why it's on French Bistro menu. It wasn't a great cut of meat but flavour was there. My biggest disappointment was the Frites. I don't know where to begin with the Frites. A bistro should not have Frites that are anything other than hand cut, FRESH potatoes and doubled fried. It's a must. These were not. These frites were akin to McCain's frozen french fries. If a restaurant is going to charge upward of $36 to $50 for steak frites, do it properly. I saw no point in complaining as they clearly wouldn't be able to produce proper Bistro frites as replacement.

The cocktails were good. We had the French Manhattan which had good balance of flavour and no skimping on the alcohol. Wine was excellent. A good French Bordeaux. The Espresso martini with the Baked Alaska was a great combo. The Baked Alaska was a good attempt. I'm trying to determine if it was a really good meringue or a cheat with soft marshmallow? Not sure but it did taste good.

Our bill was over $250 for two people which included two cocktails, two starters, two mains, three glasses of wine and one dessert with a dessert cocktail.

I think perhaps the corporate group that owns this place should invest in getting a trainer or consultant/chef in the kitchen who has French Bistro experience and can up their game and get the food to true French Bistro status. It's suspect when there is no chef listed on the website or the menu of a Bistro. They need an experienced Bistro Chef. I'm not sure I would pay out for a dinner here again. The dishes all tasted good but some seemed to be pre-made and reheated.

I may come back to try the brunch as the staff are great and it's a nice spot...

Let me simply say this: this little place is absolutely worth every minute, every penny and every effort to get to eat here. The atmosphere is cozy without being crowded and the decor is very unobtrusive; obviously, not the most important thing but the ambiance was certainly kept in mind when they designed this place.

The food was so very good. We literally ate so much we instantly succumbed to a blissful food coma that left us panting.

We couldn't decide which so we started with the two tartares on offer, the steak and the tuna. Both were breathtakingly good though we did prefer the tuna. It was nicely balanced and had a smooth velvety texture. Highly recommend it!

After that we were stumped for entrees so we got the duck confit, the lamb terrine and the boeuf bourgignon.

We chose the bourgignon as a soup course; it was served with warm baguette, lightly smeared with a truffle butter that was helpful without demanding any real attention beside the actual food. The stew itself was quite excellent! Well balanced and sinfully tender; it really was worth the lack of breathing room later on.

The duck confit was brilliantly done! Fall of the bone tender but still crispy enough to have a light crackle when you pierced it with a fork. The seasoning was an unexpected hit of five-spice blend that leaned more to a Peking duck that matched startlingly well with the blueberry sauce and left us both pleasantly surprised.

The duck was served with an succulent square of pommes dauphin that was a perfect combination of solid structure, buttery happiness and the smallest hint of sharp cheesy bliss. It was good enough we ordered a side dish of these potatoes and savoured them most happily.

The lamb terrine...this was a neat trick. It looks like a rather substantial block of meat, until you put a fork to it. Once that fork makes it through the outer crust, this illusion simply flows onto the plate and melts on the tongue like a savoury and sultry kiss. I've grown up eating lamb and I have never missed the fact that it tastes a bit more strongly and gamey than beef; when I tell you that we had to wait for the flavour of lamb to permeate through the prep and cooking, it was a supremely pleasant shock to find that lamb flavour floating in as a final note in the flavour profile.

We decided to go for the full explosive gusto and ordered some coffee and a creme brulee for dessert.

Please let me tell you that this coffee was so very nicely done. I don't know who did the roasting but the mixed in some smoky bliss that added a nice toffee note to the bouquet coming out these mugs.

And then there was the brulee. I am not shy about my love of food and I can honestly say, this was the best blessed brulee I've ever had in my life. The presentation is highly artistic with raspberries that were the mold used to make all other raspberries and then the custard! This custard was a smooth blend of orange and vanilla that teased and left me whimpering.

I can only say this if you're not the foodie I am... if you're in Collingwood and you want good food for an excellent price with flawless service; GO...

Poppy’s was a little bit of somewhere else. It was conspiratorially cozy, with small tables and warm lights. You could sit by yourself and not feel lonely in Poppy’s.

I cannot speak generally about their food, as I only had two items from the menu, but each of those two items had specifics to be shared.

The steak tartare was what it should be: rich and raw. However, the potato chips it was served with were inconsistent. Some were soft and soggy, while others thick and hard.

The steak frites were good, but the menu sets the expectation of excellent. They reside in a little place of honour, in their own little section, proudly displaying their café de paris butter. What comes to the table could just be another menu item, tucked away in the list with the others.

For your consideration: Slice the steak. While this does make it look nicer, it also allows the inside to be seasoned. It also allows the butter to melt into, not just onto, the meat and combine with its juices to form a sauce. Crank up the butter. The butter was fine, but the expectation is café de paris! The expectation is a plate swimming with flavourful, savoury, herby butter, ready to greedily mopped up by awaiting frites! What arrives is a firm medallion of a lightly seasoned compound butter. Sadly, no mop of fries was required. Fry the fries longer. Not much longer, but a little. About half were soft. They’re good fries, too, just a little soft and a little bland. More time and either more seasoning or a lot more butter and meat juice on the plate (which is the role of the frites portion of steak and frites).

This is an obnoxious amount of criticism for a good meal in a delightful place. It just wouldn’t take a lot more for it to be an exceptional meal in a delightful place.

I will happily go to Poppy’s the next...