Flaming desserts and freshly-made Caesar salad..even the dressing is prepared right in front of your eyes! Steak diane with rich creamy sauce, flambed with flair.

    The show is as good as the food when it’s prepared tableside at Le Bistro restaurant in the beautiful Best Western Big Bear Chateau. Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but only slight. When manager and maitre d’ Jeffrey Peterson and his capable staff wheel out the preparation cart and create luscious salads, entrees and desserts, all eyes present get to feast on the show, but only the fortunate diners savor the results, save for those close enough to get a whiff of tantalizing aromas.

    Peterson built quite the reputation with tableside service at Vintage restaurant where he was the owner/chef, and now he’s doing it again at Le Bistro, which for years has been one of Big Bear’s undiscovered gems anyway. Surrounded by fine art and with a live rose at each table—some white, some pink—diners are treated to a menu that’s varied enough to accommodate hotel guests, but tempting enough to lure in locals and visitors staying elsewhere.

    Tableside is truly an art form in itself, completely at home in a garden-style restaurant decorated with paintings by Marc Chagall, chandeliers and murals all around. Le Bistro has made it a cornerstone of its menu, and Peterson does it well enough that famed restaurant critic Elmer Dills made a trip up the mountain to enjoy his services for his birthday.

    Wife Sandy and I were treated to a couple courses of tableside service on our recent visit. In creating Caesar salad, Jeffrey began by creating a paste out of extra virgin olive oil, garlic and anchovies, before adding ingredients including balsamic vinegar, egg, lemon, croutons and parmesan...lots of parmesan!

    Then he deftly tossed the salad and topped it with still more finely-grated parmesan, before setting ample servings in front of us. Even before we tasted it, our nostrils were treated to tempting aromas while Peterson did his thing. Extremely fresh and crunchy, each bite of lettuce exploded with flavor, as a smorgasbord of tastes combined in our mouths.

    To show that Le Bistro’s kitchen led by chef Evinsio Santos is top notch as well, we enjoyed two of Le Bistro’s signature dishes. Mine was pepper cognac filet mignon, served in a rich creamy sauce perfectly offset with peppercorn that provided plenty of zippy taste. “Melt in the mouth” is an overused cliche but that’s what this pan-seared eight ounce slice of heaven was, and my knife glided through it like skis in powder. It comes with garlic mashed potatoes worthy of mention in their own right, savory and creamy.

    Sandy meanwhile enjoyed Le Bistro’s legendary chicken chateau. “Get (the plate) out of here before I start licking it,” she said upon polishing off the entree.

    For dessert the tableside cart returned for a performance of famed bananas foster, created at historic Brennan’s restaurant in New Orleans. You don’t have to travel to the Gulf Coast to experience this classic though, for Peterson combines butter, brown sugar, oranges, bananas and Courvoisier 151, lights it up like a Roman candle, then tops it over ice cream with a touch of cinnamon for flavor.

    Magnificent and rich, each bite was a taste sensation, and this time we both thought about licking our plates...gauche to be sure, but that good. “I like the smell that lingers after we flambe,” a passing server said.

    By the time Le Bistro has fully implemented its tableside menu, expect 10-15 different items to be offered, Peterson said, including chateaubriand, steak diane, even the signature chicken chateau. There’s also tableside cocktails, like Cafe Diablo, a seven liquor coffee concoction with brandy, Kahlua, Grand Marnier, Tia Maria, amaretto, Frangelico and 151 rum, flambed with caramelized sugar on the rim. Yum.

    “All the flavors come together and you can’t taste the liquor,” Peterson said.

    Peterson has worked at some pretty nice places in his time, including Claes in the Hotel Laguna in Laguna Beach, Newport’s Chanteclair, and Halekulani in Hawaii, so he brings distinct flair to tableside preparation. He’s pursuing a sommier’s certificate.

    Because Le Bistro is in a Best Western—no doubt the only Chateau in the chain—hotel guests have to be catered to as well. So as fancy as Le Bistro is, with tableside service and fine art all around, the menu also sports pizza and burgers for $10, several pasta dishes for a few dollars more, delicious chicken entrees in the same price range, and a nice steak and shrimp combo for $22.95.

    —by Marcus Dietz

    Best Western Big Bear Chateau is at 42200 Moonridge Rd. Call (909) 866-6666.