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Justin Fox Burks
Enjoy a croque madame layered with shaved ham, Gruyere cheese, and whole grain mustard cream sauce with a sunny side up egg on top
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Justin Fox Burks
Try the table snack for either two or four.
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Justin Fox Burks
For dessert, try pana cotta, lemon pound cake, or chocolate bundt cake.
After a weekend dinner at Blue Honey Bistro, I ask my dinner-mates to name a favorite dish. My husband doesn’t hesitate: The coffee, prepared at the table in a French press pot. The salmon, says a friend, praising the entree’s soft moist center — peach-colored like an Orange Crush rose — and its olive-caper tapenade. Another friend needs a nudge to pick something new, so he moves easily to dessert: a first-rate chocolate Bundt cake with cherry ice cream and crème anglaise, all house-made. And for me? Purple cauliflower soup, swirled with pureed arugula into a gorgeous tapestry of grape and green.
The space is small at Blue Honey but gracious, like a family dining room dressed up for a holiday meal with stemware, white linens, and extra chairs pulled up to the table. “We like to do things small and personalized,” says Courtney Bryan, who runs the front of the house, while her chef husband, Drew Bryan, handles the kitchen. “On any given night, people will know other people eating at another table. We love the visiting back and forth.”
The decision on the bistro’s name — like most things at Blue Honey — is shared between husband and wife. Blue is the couple’s sentimental color, honey is a name Drew liked, and blue honey is produced randomly by bees near Fayetteville, North Carolina. Courtney discovered the mystery in a Google search. “The phenomenon is weird, and we are a little weird because we are together all the time,” Courtney says. “So Blue Honey seemed like a perfect name.”
Open since June, the bistro serves lunch and dinner and expects a liquor license soon. They plan to serve cocktails and about 40 wines, mostly boutique labels. While menus are limited — only five entrees for dinner — the choices are approachable and full-flavored, like brown butter scallops with bacon, cannellini beans, and Mississippi blue rice. And to start? A trio of table snacks: pimento cheese, black-eyed pea humus, and deviled ham, chunky with sweet pickles like my mother used to make.
Blue Honey Bistro, 9155 Poplar Ave., Suite 17 in Germantown (901-552-3041) $-$$$
