One night during our stay in Asheville, we were looking for a good place to dine. We asked one of the very helpful front desk persons at the Hilton Garden Inn - Downtown Asheville where a good place to dine would be. We were looking for a low-key, unpretentious place that served good food. He immediately came back with a place we had seen in our walks around downtown - Isa's Bistro. "And we can even take you there," he cheerfully said. Moments later, their electric shuttle car dropped us off in front of Isa's Bistro located at 1 Battery Park in downtown Asheville. (see map)
Tony Fraga is a local developer whose FIRC Group oversees commercial and residential properties in Asheville and in South Florida. One of the properties Fraga's group manages is the Haywood Park Hotel, a boutique hotel in downtown Asheville. In business now for over 30 years, the Haywood Park is located in a building that was once the Bon Marché department store, a high-end establishment that catered to the well-heeled who would vacation in Asheville. In the late 30's, the department store was taken over by Ivey's, a North Carolina-based department store that was eventually bought out by Dilliard's in 1990. Ivey's had moved to a mall location in Asheville in the mid-70's and the building languished before being turned into a hotel in 1985.
At the corner of Battery Park and Haywood next to the hotel's lobby was a longtime local favorite restaurant by the name of the Flying Frog. The owners eventually changed it to a bistro by the name of Solace before closing it in 2012. Tony Fraga came along with plans to do his own restaurant - named after his wife, Isabel, - and he opened Isa's Bistro in June of 2013. Isa's Bistro executive chef, Duane Fernandes - a double culinary school graduate from both Johnson and Wales, and the Culinary Institute of Charleston - had worked in AAA Four Diamond and Five Diamond restaurants in South Carolina and Virginia before he joined the staff at Thomas Keller's iconic Per Se in New York City, a Michelin 3-star restaurant. Prior to moving over to Isa's Bistro, Fernandes was in charge of the restaurant at the luxurious Grove Park Inn and Spa in Asheville.
It was around 7:30 when we walked into Isa's Bistro. We were greeted by a host who said that we could pretty much have our choice to sit anywhere we liked. The place was pretty quiet. "After a long holiday weekend, it's been pretty slow," he explained. "But that's all right. It's allowed us to catch our breath." There were wrought iron tables out front for sidewalk dining and a nice contemporary bar area, but we took a seat near a window that allowed us to do some people watching while we dined.
The dining area was spacious, but had little areas bounded by short walls. We were soon greeted by our server for the evening, a young friendly guy by the name of Brady who gave us menus to look over. My wife ordered a glass of pinot grigio and I got a pale ale beer that they had on tap.
On the wall near where we were seated were the original doors to the restaurant with two photos flanking the doors. The photo on the left was of Julia Child, the photo on the right was of James Beard - personal heroes of chef Duane Fernandes and two influential people in terms of haute cuisine in the United States.
Downstairs where the restrooms were located was a private dining area called The Cellar. It featured areas for group dining, receptions or gatherings. There was a nice den area with a fireplace down in The Cellar area along with a large collection of wines served at Isa's Bistro.
Like his mentor Thomas Keller, chef Duane Fernandes is a firm believer in the "farm-to-fork" concept of serving only locally grown, sustainable foods. Because of that, we were told, there's an evolving menu that features nightly specials of foods that were procured within the last 24 hours. But the main menu is usually intact with much of the same items available daily.
Isa's Bistro features a number of appetizers or small plate varieties to share among diners. My wife wanted to try something and one of the small plates specials they had that evening were Prince Edward Island mussels served in a butter sauce. (Actually, I wanted to try the grilled octopus, but she didn't want anything to do with that.) We were served a small bowl of the mussels that were all plump and meaty in the shell. But the broth - wow! The taste was out of this world. Just two small pieces of toasted bread came with the mussels and those were quickly consumed after dipping the bread into the broth. We made Brady get us some more bread because there was still a lot of the butter sauce in the bottom of the bowl and it was all I could do from just picking up the bowl and slurping it back.
During the course of the evening, I spilled my full glass of beer literally dumping it on the table as the frosted glass slipped from my hand. I was embarrassed and apologetic to Brady and the host as they did their best to clean up the mess. They finally just moved us to the table next to us, considering there were only two other tables occupied in the restaurant when we were there.
For dinner that night, my wife got one of the specials on the menu - Julia Child's chicken. It was two pieces of fresh farm raised chicken, roasted in herbs and served on a bed of multi-vegetable succotash. The chicken was tender and my wife said it had a load of flavor from the herbs it was cooked with. The succotash, she thought, was perfectly cooked with a variety of beans, corn, peppers and radishes. She thought it was the perfect meal - light and healthy.
Me? Well, there didn't seem to be anything on the menu that jumped out at me. Oh, there was a lot to choose from including a North Carolina pork chop, a "fresh-catch-of-the-day" caught along with Carolina coast with shrimp, and a pan-seared North Carolina mountain trout. But I ended up getting the Carolina bison brisket with pasta. The bison was braised for 10 hours making the bison moist and tender without losing the great beef flavor, and it was served with some pasta in a wonderful brown sauce. It was the perfect portion size in regard to the braised bison and pasta - not a lot of both, but enough to satiate my appetite. It wasn't heavy, nor was it too light. And it was simply delicious.
We thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of our visit to Isa's Bistro. We were told it was a great place to eat and we certainly weren't disappointed. While it wasn't good for them that evening, we liked that we were one of just a very few patrons in the place on a quiet weeknight. And because of that, we got excellent service from Brady who got a nice tip at the end of the night - not only for the spilled beer incident - but for his attentive nature and friendly demeanor. We ate at a lot of nice places during our time in Asheville and Isa's Bistro was definitely a meal that we'll remember.
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