La Merise French Bistro

La Merise is a cute little French restaurant I've been to for brunch and dinner. The atmosphere is lovely and service was great. Brunch was delicious. I ordered a savory crepe which was heavenly. The endless mimosa deal was superb. Dinner was fine. Prices jumped a bit and the quality of food was just decent. My biggest complaint, which is really why I only give it 4 stars, is the price I paid for the house wine. I paid $36 for a bottle of La Vieille de Ferme red wine. If you recognize that, it's because it's the bottle on the bottom shelf of the value wine section at your local liquor store. I went online to learn that it retails for $6.97. That is a 500% mark up. I understand you need to make a profit, but most online sources say the standard mark up is between 200-300%. A twist off wine bottle for $36 is plain insulting. For a French restaurant, y'all could stand to improve your wine list.

Something about the atmosphere was so romantic. The drinks were great, but my food (Lamb burger) was a bit dry.

My husband took me on a lunch date here this past week while the kids were at school because I told him I wanted to go to a place "with good French sauces" and he found this. Overall we were very pleased! We had a reservation and were seated right away. The patio is charming and it has a very European bistro vibe. We started with a couple cocktails which were very good, I want to say one was called French Connection and the other Le Rêve, I preferred the latter. We ordered the cheese plate appetizer which also had thin apple slices with toasted sugar on top, so good! The bread and butter they started with was also so delicious. I had the French onion soup and it was amazing. My husband had a cauliflower soup, it needed salt. Our entrees were very good as well, my husband had the Trout Grenobloise and I had the Chicken Croquettes. Very tasty! The sauces really captured the French feeling for us. So why just 4 stars? Because you'd think for a restaurant like this, crème brûlée would be e