Bistro Elan — Restaurant in Palo Alto

My wife and I enjoyed a nice evening out on 01/19/19 at this delightfully cozy enclave slightly off the main stretch of restaurants of California St. in Palo Alto. Our waitress was excellent in her service as well as our wait staff. We were wonderfully fortunate to get the patio seating area all to ourselves on account of a slow spurt on Sat night most likely attributable to MLK weekend; the seating area was cozy and well heated with overhead heating lamps, but not so warm as to make either of us too hot. I chuckled at our wait staff's attentiveness toward my wife's "slow picking" off her plate -- they came to and fro several times catching a glimpse of us from inside just behind the curtains and coming out here and again only to find my wife reach again for a small dribble on our plates - in which case they quickly doubled-back and reversed course inside. Only at the perfect moment did they tactfully come out and remove our dinner plates. :-) Our waitress also offered several tastes of wine before we selected our Pinot Noir selections (nice touch). We ordered the oysters and the salmon/potato waffle appetizers. We also had the maison olive oil with our bread and it was simply delicious. Oysters were pretty well balanced and the smoked salmon and potato appetizer was great with the garnish and cream/celery. For dinner we ordered the scallops and the New York steak with fries. I really enjoyed the scallops and the potato gratin-like side that came with them -- would get this again if we went back. The steak was medium-rare, but it was a bit of a tough cut and the fries, while tasty, were nothing short of typical fare. Unfortunately we had no room for desert. This place is an excellent spot for a fancy dinner and if you are into French-American cuisine. We prefer more complex flavors and a wider variety of spices and textures in our food (more typical of Asian cuisine), but for what we ordered here,...

(I rated this before and maybe it still exists, but Google appears to have lost it, so adding my review again.)

I've been coming here on and off for 11 years!

There's a cozy garden that's open if it's not too cold outside--they run heaters in the evening. Inside it can get quite loud.

Really good, well-prepared French and seasonal foods. My favorite part was always the desserts (which mostly I can't eat anymore), so I can't say how they are these days, but... Some of the desserts I fondly recall: crepes stuffed with sauted apples, topped with candied pecans and a little scoop of cinnamon ice cream on the side; apple strudel with vanilla and milk chocolate sauces, sponge cake with pineapple coulis and a scoop of coconut ice cream. You should check to see if they still have an awesome pastry chef.

I've only eaten there a couple times since needing to eat gluten free, but I've found the waitstaff helpful and that I've still had lots of tasty options.

I miss living just down the street from here. Of course, it's not really an every day meal place, but it's one of my favorite special occasion...

We had great expectations for this place, but it was such a letdown.

First of all the prix fixe menu was not very appealing. But we found something we could eat. The choice of main dishes was better than the appetizers but not very interesting.

Caviar was fishy and not good. Could not finish the small portion even though I love caviar.

Little gem salad was soggy and unappealing in presentation. looked like it had been sitting out for awhile before serving. Sadly the greens weren't little gem but rather romaine!

The steak was hard to cut and tough in parts even though it seemed cooked medium rare as ordered. Mushrooms had no flavor but the sauce was tasty. Potatoes looked as if they had been made a few days ago and reheated.

Desserts were the only highlight. Almond cookie was perfect as well as the flowerless chocolate cake which was tasty.

Cant believe how much we paid for such a disappointing meal! Grossly overpriced.

Service was...