Something has happened to the Americanized French Brasserie (AFB). Knowing exactly when it started may be impossible, but the now-ubiquitous species, or sub-species really (AFBs are only distantly related to their forebears in Paris and Lyon), has changed over the past few years.
They’ve become saucier.
French cuisine is, of course, both admired and distrusted around the world, mostly because of all that sauce. There’s something suspicious about it. Sauce spurs Francophilic foodies to wax on like wine lovers about concepts like balance and perfection, using words like dexterity and cadence and velvet. But the vocabulary of sauce, like the vocabulary of wine, can scare the pantalons off the rest of us, even as we lick our plates clean and ask for seconds.
AFBs, like Brasserie Felix at Tennyson Street and West 39th Avenue, are as American as they are French, hawking steaks and fries and grilled cheese sandwiches. Only here they’re called steak frites and croque monsieurs. The difference: sauce.
But sauce is tricky. The point of a sauce is to support a dish, not disguise it. To maintain the dignity and purpose of a sauce, restraint matters. And at AFBs like Brasserie Felix , it’s this point — restraint — which is under siege of late.
Case in point, the lunchtime croque monsieur at Brasserie Felix . Who’d be able to tell exactly what it was as it arrived at the table, gasping for oxygen under its rich, puddinglike sauce? Who’d know how special the brioche was, or the country ham, under all that creamy, musty gruyere-bechamel smother?
Restraint was inevident. The sauce didn’t support the sandwich; it clobbered it.
Still, once I changed my mind, my meal was far from ruined. After reducing by half the hot, salty pile of skinny little fries (the best kind), I devoured the whole messy sandwich with fork and knife — and spoon, used to scour every drizzle of sauce from the farthest reaches of my plate.
The sauce, if too abundant, was nonetheless delicious. Perhaps not dextrous or velvety, but sultry and soothing and not a drop was wasted.
The problem? This wasn’t the lunch I’d imagined when I ordered it. The rest of the sandwich had no chance to add to the moment. The potential of the yeasty, soft-crispiness of the toasted brioche, and the potential of the sweet smoky of the ham, each went unrealized.
And so goes the sauce, at Brasserie Felix, and other AFBs from New York to San Francisco. Where 10 years ago sauces in AFBs were sidekicks, they’ve become the main event.
There is hope in among all this sauce, but the onus is on you: You must manage your sauce quotient when you order. If your dinner is to be steak frites, ask for a light hand with the sauce, or even better, request that it arrive on the side. If your breakfast is to be eggs Benedict/norvigienne/florentine … call for sauce hollandaise on the side. Pan roasted Dover sole … dijon-caper sauce on the side. You get the idea.
Once you’ve surfaced from your sauce, you’ll sense that Brasserie Felix is a charming, thoughtful, well-husbanded endeavor. After a few blips and bumps in ownership and stewardship during its first few months in business, it’s emerged as a pleasant addition to the bustling Tennyson Street neighborhood.
The room is a relaxing one, particularly during the day: Single guys sitting at the bar reading the paper with a glass of wine, couples engaged in secret tète-a-tètes by the window over dishes of profiteroles, groups of shop-bound hipster girls with tall boots and backbreaking handbags. This customer base, mostly from the neighborhood, is tended carefully and professionally (if, endearingly, aloofly — as is the AFB style).
Bottom line: Sure, it’s got French genes in its heritage, and the menu reads like a second-level French vocab pop quiz. But Brasserie Felix is unabashedly American, and that suits Denver — and its quotidian hunger pangs — just fine.
Tucker Shaw: dining@denverpost.com
Brasserie Felix
French Brasserie 3901 Tennyson St., 303-953-2401,
** Rating | Very Good
Atmosphere: Standard-issue American-French Brasserie: red and white accents, tiled floors, Toulouse-Lautrec(ish) advertising posters, mirrors, banquettes, flattering lighting.
Service: Efficient, direct and quick; not snobby. Occasionally hassled when busy.
Wine: Fair, easily managed wine list with affordable pours.
Plates: Appetizers $5.95-$12.95, mains $14.95-$20.95.
Hours: Lunch: Tuesday-Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Dinner: Monday-Thursday 5 to 9 p.m.; Friday, Saturday 5 to 10 p.m.; Brunch: Saturday, Sunday 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Details: Reservations suggested but usually not necessary. Street parking. Wheelchair accessible. Happy-hour specials. Good for groups.
Three visits.
Our star system:
****: Exceptional
***: Great
**: Very Good
*: Good
