Bistro, Sarasota Art Museum

The hardest part to write of most articles is the intro. Especially when writing about restaurants, where selecting what to spotlight can be as challenging as choosing what to order.

Do I start with the incredibly accomplished executive director and the uber-talented executive chef? The food? Location, history, ambience? Or should I start where the restaurant did: with a simple, yet iconic, chair?

At Bistro, every delicious detail— from the story behind its seats to the unbelievably talented women fueling its progress, has something supremely tasty to offer. So, I guess let’s just dig in buffet-style. You with me?

Let’s start with the backdrop. If you’re from around here, you’ve spent the last few years watching the transformation of that notable giant brick building on US 41 from the former Sarasota High School to the current Ringling College Museum Campus, which houses the college’s Continuing Studies program as well as the Sarasota Art Museum, a space vibrant with color and whimsy and plenty of eye candy to chew on. It truly stands alone for a number of reasons including its adaptive reuse, which allowed our city to keep one of its distinctive landmarks while providing something uniquely modern. And so it makes sense that its culinary offering, Bistro, is also vivid and creative with a menu that somehow manages to combine comfort food with the curious creativity appropriate for a contemporary art museum.

If you aren’t familiar with Anne-Marie Russell, that’s OK— though you probably should be. As the executive director and chief curator of the museum, she is what many would positively refer to as a force. With decades of experience in cultural production under her belt, including culinary school and movie-making, it’s only logical that her one-two punch of creativity and motivation would result in a truly divine space that seems almost other-worldly here in our coastal city. She has that bit of magic that most strive for, able to alchemize the most basic element into, well, a work of art.

Take, for instance, a simple wooden chair and Anne-Marie’s ability to turn it into an entirely unforgettable experience. Michael Thonet’s No. 14 chair, more popularly known as the bistro chair, was introduced in 1859 and became the world’s first mass-produced piece of furniture. It looks cool, certainly, but Anne-Marie used the seat as a spark of inspiration for an entire culinary story. What gives it its edge is the way it’s made using a unique steam-bending technology that took years to perfect. The resulting modest chair became one of the best-selling pieces of furniture ever made.

Bistro’s coral-colored No. 14s provide a bold infusion of color that indicates exactly what you’re about to dive into with the food: classic, iconic, simple, but also fun, spunky, and unexpected. It’s a highly (very highly) curated experience that takes into account the personality of the museum as well as its regional surroundings and abundant with sustainable, local, fresh farmers’ market fare.

But, as I’ve said in many an Edible article over the years, none of that matters if the food is garbage—not the beautiful space, not the amazing chairs, not even the menu itself. All that matters is the food. At Bistro, with executive Chef Kaytlin Dangaran and the Constellation Culinary Group team at the helm, the food, just like the museum, is an absolute crowd-pleaser.

Chef Dangaran may currently live in the art world, but the lady is a rock star. She’s a mom of two toddler boys, the executive chef of Bistro as well as its general manager, has a resume that includes studying at the French Culinary Institute, worked at uber-famous restaurants in New York City and San Francisco, including Michael Tusk’s Quince, and originally hails from the Tampa area, which means her need to represent the region well isn’t just for kicks, it’s personal.

I could wax poetic about her history with food; her devotion to real, whole, local ingredients; her passion for her work; and her extreme skill with elevated cuisine—and I probably should, given that’s what the article’s supposed to be about, but really what you need to know is that this chef has the magical ability to turn a turkey sandwich into a work of art and makes the meanest mushroom duxelles I’ve ever had, which, for the record, she tops with the an exquisitely timed six-minute egg and a drizzle of truffle oil to really seal the deal. It’s not just a sandwich, it’s the sandwich, and it’s completely unforgettable.

Chef Dangaran’s philosophy on food stems from a love of, and professional and personal history with, Italian food and its desire to make simple ingredients shine. She’s not trying to smother food in sauces; she’s trying to make you fall in love with honey from Myakka and watercress from a nearby farm. Her goal is to create approachable dishes that mesh well with museumgoers’ desire for a light bite but to ensure that it is the best that it can be. Even familiar dishes like chicken salad stand apart from the pack as that chicken was locally sourced, brined in-house in a homemade marinade, pulled by hand and served with mayonnaise made from scratch, among other things. Cedar-plank salmon, “griddled” cheese, tomato bisque and matzoh ball soup… They are dishes you’ve known your whole life, but never tasted like this before, dishes that may be recognizable, but it takes an insanely talented human to turn them into something no average person could accomplish.

Bistro an excellent backdrop for day dates, time with family, work lunches, staycations, you name it. You don’t need to visit the museum to dine there, though why would you not? And you can also hire Bistro to cater on-premises events, which will bring a level of culinary curation that you won’t find in the average catering company. This place is a gorgeous feather in Sarasota’s cap.

Restaurants, like paintings and sculptures and all mediums in between, are open to interpretation. Some are widely well-received, some are only beloved by a certain audience. Bistro is the former. I’ll see you there—we’ll order one of everything and split it. Deal?

Sarasota Art Museum: 1001 S Tamiami Trl, Sarasota; sarasotaartmuseum.org