Lili’s Bistro
“Great service, delicious food (loved the lamb chops) and very nice ambiance!”
“The grilled calamari appetizer is a must have and was a perfect blend of tender calamari and balsamic reduction.”
“Finished off the night with a wonderful cappuccino, and a few bites of my Dad's creme brûlée.”
Lili’s Bistro
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$$ Price range $31-60
1 review
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Tucked away in a strip mall, adjacent to the local movie house, Lili's is a new Mediterranean style BYO that serves up tasty bistro fare at reasonable price points for the area. Nothing like good flicks and food on a cold winter's day!
The Room:
Modern and tastefully decorated with perimeter glass, high ceilings, muted colors and recessed lighting. Seating is comfortable, the tables are spacious and the vibe is elegant — but not stuffy.
The Service:
The owner (Erica – the restaurant is named after her daughter) and her staff are engaging the minute you walk through the door and not a thing is left to chance. You will be coddled here with genuine European hospitality — a personal touch that I find missing all too often in many of the pricier restaurants in the area. The servers are polite, knowledgeable and available — a bit eager at times but never intrusive.
The Food:
Quality is excellent and the portions are large.
The Italian and French inspired menu is filtered through the sensibilities of the Central European proprietors (Hungary and Kosovo), and for my money, successfully so. This is not overly stylized or pretentious cookery, but what it lacks in sophistication is more than made up for by authentic flavors and textures and the owners' passion for food and ambiance.
My thick cut porterhouse special was enormous — the meat was tender and flavorful — cooked to a perfect medium rare and nicely seasoned and crusted with black pepper. Peter Lugers it 'aint (and neither is the price) — but very satisfying and sliced professionally for easy eating. Served astride a decent mash, blanched haricots verts and a very flavorful mushroom gravy, I thoroughly enjoyed this entree.
We also had the branzino special — sautéed and served in a lemony beurre blanc — the NY strip au poivre from the regular menu — owner recommended grilled calamari appetizer, served over grilled zucchini with a savory reduction of what looked like a balsamic glaze but tasted like mushrooms — and grilled Hungarian sausage with broccoli rabe and caramelized onions. All were nicely prepared and presented and ate well, but the sausage was a bit over processed with nitrites and salt for my tastes. The complementary ciabatta bread and pea spread paired well with our meal — and is refilled as often as you like, but I would have preferred a good unsalted butter to the salty whipped stuff served with.
Pricing:
Expect to drop about $40-$50 bucks per person for a three course meal with coffee, less if you choose pasta and chicken. Truthfully, a single main course portion is plenty of food for an average sized human — but we wanted to taste a nice cross section of the menu – and ordered up.
Quibbles:
Not everything we ate was perfect; there were some execution errors in the meal. The NY strip was ordered rare but was cooked to a medium gray, and the house made creme brûlée was toasted in a broiler rather than torched — warming the custard to an unpleasant temperature. I expect this sort of hiccup from a new kitchen, and this is the only reason I didn't rate Lili's at 5 stars. We will be back and dig deeper into the menu next time, on the assumption that this was just a fluke. TBC.
Top Tip:
Erica says Lili's does "off the menu" cookery at the customer's request, and they will be test marketing some Eastern European classics soon. Nice to know and I look forward to more adventurous dining here in the months to come.