On an early spring evening, Steve Monnier inspects a plate of poulet roit au foin—whole chicken roasted in hay and glazed with honey-brandy sauce—while a pastry chef at the pass pipes cream in between fine layers of puff pastry to build a Napoleon, and a line cook oversees the asador, where quail gets grilled above the sparkling embers of the wood fire. 

This is the scene at Chez Hugo Bistro, Monnier’s downtown dining follow-up to Hampden’s Arômes, where the focus was solely a pre-fixe tasting menu. In a sea of sameness, it was a unique restaurant concept at the time, but not everyone in Baltimore was ready for a menu in which the chef did all the deciding. So Monnier heard the people’s cri de coeur and closed his boîte at the end of last year to work on this new concept. If my first few visits are any indication, it was a bonne idée, indeed.

At Hugo, Monnier is cooking not only what he wants to cook, but also what others expect of traditional French bistro food. For daring foodies, there’s still a tasting menu (six to 10 courses for $85/per person), but Hugo’s main menu features a greatest hits of French-country cuisine—from pâte en croute to coq au vin and moules frites. And unlike the sometimes experimental Arômes, which often highlighted avant-garde ingredients such as lime ash and dehydrated scallops, the fare, although still fanciful (to wit, beets with wild rose vinaigrette and sour plums), needs little to no translation.

Also, while Arômes’ environs were the cramped quarters of a Hampden row house, Hugo—named for Monnier’s 4-year-old son and on the site of the former Baltimore International College—has no such issues. Inside this historic building (originally a Methodist Episcopal Church, long before becoming the local culinary arts college), there’s a roomy bar for sipping an effervescent French 75 and a tony dining room with tufted, mustard-colored banquettes, cabaret chairs, French blue walls, mosaic tile floors, and original carved wood moldings. (Think Bordeaux meets Baltimore.)

Monnier, who hails from Reims in the Champagne region of France and worked in the kitchens of several Michelin-starred spots (Le Carré des Feuillants, Le Laurent, Taillevent), is able to showcase his culinary talents here. Of course, many fine-dining chefs have been classically trained in the Escoffier school of cooking, but there’s something about having an actual French chef at the helm that creates a kind of culinary verité.

While our trips to the table were beset by some minor missteps (on one outing, ours was among the first tables seated on a Saturday night, and already the kitchen was out of whole chickens), there were remarkably few for a restaurant in its first semester. On our dinner visits, servers were relaxed and gave good recommendations, including one for the soupe à l’oignon et son toast with sweet charred onions and croutons nestled under a cap of melted gruyère and a beef broth that takes two days to prepare. There was also a ringing endorsement for a simple salad of grilled carrots tossed with tangy grapefruit sections, fennel, and frisée. The citrus of the grapefruit offset the natural sweetness of the charred carrots, and the fennel added a nice crunch. 

On our first visit, the most outstanding entrée was the beef bourguignon, a masterpiece in composition with thick hunks of braised beef short rib on a plate punctuated by carrots, pearl onions, button mushrooms, and two thick slices of bread for mopping up the Bordelaise sauce. It was rich and comforting and a paragon of French home-style cooking. 

There are also nightly specials, including a lobster salad special for two. The $70 price tag was a bit steep, but the portion was large, and the preparation, employing brown butter and curry and placed on a bed of frisée along with a Japanese sweet potato, beautifully showcased the shellfish.    

But the pièce de résistance, and the reason for our return visit, was the aforementioned roasted chicken for two. It has long been said that the true test of a chef is his or her chicken. Nowhere is this truer than at Hugo, where a pasture-raised whole bird is roasted at high heat, then deglazed with white wine, cream and chicken stock. As we waited the requisite 45 minutes it took to prepare, the anticipation, and hunger, mounted. And when a fleet of servers arrived with the fragrant and flavorful chicken neatly sliced in a skillet and served alongside roasted broccoli and potatoes—plus au jus on the side to amp up the succulence and a small salad verte on the side—we ate with abandon.  

Though you’re likely to feel sated even without dessert, remember The French Diet (red wine, butter, chocolate). Consider the macaron au chocolat with chocolate ganache or the crème brûlée with its professionally caramelized crust and just the right level of vanilla swirled into buttercup yellow custard. The Paris-Brest, a donut doppelganger made with choux pastry and filled with praline cream, is equally divine. For next time—and there will be a next time—our sights are set on that Napoleon.

CHEZ HUGO BISTRO: 206 E. Redwood St., 443-438-3002. HOURS: Mon. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tues. Thurs. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-9:30 p.m.; Fri. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-10 p.m. Sat. 5-10 p.m. PRICES: appetizers: $7-25; entrees: $23-32, plates for two: $50-75. AMBIANCE: French bistro. 

One evening after local developer Scott Helm finished a meal at Arômes in Hampden, he put in a request to speak with the chef.
 

“Our server Gilles [Mascarell] came back to the kitchen and asked me to come out and talk with him,” recalls chef Steve Monnier. “And I was just like, ‘It’s Saturday night, I don’t have time.’” 

Little did Monnier know, Helm was looking for someone to head up a new restaurant at a historic property that he had acquired downtown. Luckily, Helm came back for another meal with his family soon after.
  

“He was like, ‘Do you have time now?’” Monnier recalls, with a laugh. “We talked about it, and I came out to see the space and fell in love.”
 

Monnier closed Arômes in November to fully focus his energy on the new project, Chez Hugo, which is named after Monnier’s son and makes its official debut next week (reservations are full for opening night on Saturday, but the spot will reopen for dinner service Tuesday) inside the historic Merchants Club building at 206 E. Redwood Street downtown.
 

The building neighbors the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, where Helm sits on the board. Monnier is looking forward to providing a pre-show dinner spot for theater-goers, as well as partnering with the troupe for special events—like a kids’ tea party that will precede an April performance of Alice in Wonderland.  

The property’s early 20th-century roots shine through in the bistro’s layout, which preserves touches like dark wood moldings and vintage sliding doors. But designer Matthew Compton of local firm Foundry Architects had his work cut out for him when transforming the space—which was most recently used by Baltimore International College—into a full-fledged restaurant.  

Compton, whose work is also showcased at Parts & Labor and Belvedere Square Market, added elements like an open kitchen with a wood-burning hearth oven, private tasting room, main dining area with marble tabletops and yellow banquettes, and custom-made floor tiles to evoke a classic bistro feel. The 4,000-square-foot space can accommodate 60 people, with an additional 15 seats at the front bar.  

Though Monnier says that the bigger space provides an opportunity to continue his commitment to local sourcing (he frequently works with Monkton’s Karma Farm), the experimental dishes that he became known for at Arômes will no longer be the focus at Chez Hugo. Instead, he is taking a classic approach to bistro fare.  

“It’s a continuation,” he says. “With Arômes, it made me realize that you cook for the people of the city, you don’t cook for yourself. Here, I want to make sure I don’t scare people. I want to go classic first, and then evolve later.”  

In the kitchen, Monnier, along with chef de cuisine Jeff Schultz, will take inspiration from many different French regions and rotate dishes seasonally. The opening menu, which includes a daily plat du jour, features takes on classics such as escargots with butter and parsley, grilled hanger steak frites, winter squash wrapped in brioche, foie gras terrine, and duck pithivier—which Monnier describes as a savory King Cake. In-house pastry chef Theresa Louis will craft desserts like chestnut mousse with an almond macaron and maraschino caramel.  

“Yeah, you’re going to find things like onion soup,” Monnier says. “But food is like fashion—it evolves. With French cuisine, we’re reinterpreting things all the time.”  

Accompanying the food will be a bar program led by beverage director Adam Litchfield, a 15-year industry veteran who followed Monnier from Arômes. The bar is equipped with four taps, two of which will be devoted to regional beers from Oliver Brewing Company and Right Proper Brewing. The others will either be rotating local varieties, or French brews.  

The cocktail menu will also reflect the theme, incorporating French spirits like pastis and chartreuse. One of Litchfield’s signature drinks, “Rimbaud’s Vice,” is named after famed poet Arthur Rimbaud from Reims—the same region as Monnier—who “was legendary for sitting around drinking absinthe in the middle of the afternoon,” Litchfield says.  

Of course, Litchfield’s wine list has a French slant, but also includes approachable picks.  

“Some people just want to come in and drink a California cab,” he says. “We want to make sure everyone feels welcome. Generally, there is this perception that French food is stuffy and fancy. We really want to emphasize that everyone who walks through the door is going to have a great meal.”  

Above all, the staff stresses how important it is for the space to be inviting.  

“There are no VIPs,” adds general manager Chad Gentile. “If a couple saves for an entire year to come out for one dinner, it should be just as extravagant as if the President of the United States comes.”

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Recipe: Potato, Apple, Sorrel Curry

Ingredients:

• 1 Yukon potato
• 1 Granny Smith Apple
• 3 French sorrel leaves
• Fleur de sel (French sea salt)
• Butter

Vadouvan: Vadouvan, which means “sun-dried spices” in French, is a unique blend of aromatics and curry spices that originated in Southern India. The key ingredients are onion, garlic, and shallot, to which we’ve added our special curry blend for a rich complexity.

Slice the Yukon and green apple with vegetable slicer, then assemble onto the working space the layer of Yukon potato (seasoned with sea salt), then the layer of green apple, then the sorrel leaves. Roll it and tie it with butcher twine. Cook it for 20 minutes in a pan with butter on one side until golden brown on the bottom. Serve with the vadouvan butter.

For more on Baltimore’s 50 “Best Restaurants,” pick up our March issue, on newsstands now.