Sips and Snacks at Chiboust in Tarrytown
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- August
- 13
I was heading to a party at Striped Bass in Tarrytown Friday night, but I was a little early. To kill some time, I went with a friend to Chiboust, the French bistro at the top of Main Street. We sat at the bar and shared the Charcuterie plate, which has pate, chicken liver terrine, sausage, olives and pita crisps.
My friend got the blueberry mojito. It was good  not too sweet.
I had the pomegranate cosmo. Also good.
Have you been to Chiboust? Here’s my review from a few years back. There’s a new chef, but I think the review still holds true:
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Dessert may be your first course
ELIZABETH JOHNSON The Journal News
As soon as the first taste hits your mouth at Chiboust, you know you’ll be back. The food has soul. After gutting a former laundromat, exposing a brick wall, and installing modern lighting and a pastry case in front to display its creative baked goods, owner Jill Rose opened this tiny 12-table restaurant 10 weeks ago in Tarrytown. She named it for the signature desserts she created at her time as executive pastry chef at Lespinasse in Washington, D.C. and sous pastry chef at Lespinasse in Manhattan.
Chiboust is a crème named for the French pastry chef who invented it, but it is also a dessert preparation that many pastry chefs get creative with, says Rose.
“It’s something I started playing with in my repertoire, and I concocted this chiboust dessert that has been a big seller throughout my career,” she says.
Specifically, she speaks of a baked passion fruit custard with a macadamia nut crust and a layer of chiboust crème lightened with Italian meringue and topped with homemade papaya jam and white chocolate shavings. Later in the spring, expect variations on a theme, like lemon-lavender chiboust.
But no dessert before dinner. So put yourself in the hands of the competent staff and enjoy the casual atmosphere in the back of the restaurant.
Break open the fried goat cheese on top of the beet salad ($8), and the warm cheese oozes slowly over the al dente beets. The crème fraîche is an excellent foil for the lemon and of-the-sea flavor of the gravlax ($12). The foie gras terrine ($16) spreads like butter on bread, and the mussels ($10) are fresh and meaty and served with a barely-there broth of white wine, garlic and lemon.
Order bouillabaisse ($24) if you want the simple taste of fresh fish; then brace yourself for the bite of the rouille on the crusty bread. The only thing wrong with steak frites ($23) are half of the frites – the sweet potato half, which don’t hold a crisp very long and came to the table soggy. Braised lamb shank ($26) was good comfort food. The grilled fish ($25) one night was sea bass. Criss-crossing the two fillets steams the skin on the bottom one, leaving it mushy. Ask for the fennel to be cooked longer; when it barely glances at the grill it’s too hard to cut through.
Desserts, which you may choose from the case, come mostly at room temperature. (Except for the chocolate cake and the crème brûlée.) I like that; it’s as if you stopped at the bakery on the way to your friend’s dinner party.
The wine list is well chosen, and there are a plethora of by-the-glass selections, as well as after dinner drinks and dessert wines.
The neighborhood bistro theme is trendy these days, but so many restaurants fall short because they don’t understand that behind the mirrors, tile and Toulouse-Lautrec posters, there has to be heart. They need to offer a relaxed feel combined with good food made with care.
Chiboust delivers.
Chiboust
14 Main St., Tarrytown
914-703-6550
Accepts all major credit cards
Published March 25 2004.
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on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 11:18 am by Liz Johnson.
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(4.62 out of 5)
(4.21 out of 5)
