Cafe: Petite Maison

Here’s your bad food joke for the day. We love eating French onion soup, but seldom do we have the thyme to make it.

We think that joke works on multiple layers. It’s also completely true. Why cut down a bunch of bulbous tear-jerkers when a restaurant like Petite Maison can do the dirty work for you.

Food Critic Michele Laudig on Petite Maison:

Petite Maison, which opened in August, is no Tapino Junior. While Porter’s old restaurant was a sleek, expansive space with an upscale, global tapas menu — and, in more recent years, the site of his AZ-centric “locavore” dinners, which he may eventually revive — the new one is a quaint little thing, with a compact, frequently changing “French country bistro” menu.

Months before Petite Maison opened, Porter had told me he was aiming to make it an affordable neighborhood spot, the kind of place that locals will want to visit often, and I think he’s achieved that. Haute cuisine probably wouldn’t fly in these frugalista times, anyway…full story