Bernard’s, and its bucolic Ridgefield home recognised for alfresco yard seating, are officially on the sector. But it will be enterprise as standard for Bernard and Sarah Bouissou’s upscale French restaurant, right until the appropriate purchasers occur alongside.
The couple’s timeline is suitable on keep track of, explained Sarah Bouissou. When they obtained the property and opened the cafe in March 2000, they’d constantly planned to run it for 20 to 25 years.
“Everybody’s like, ‘You’re so fast paced, why do you want to offer?'” she said. “This is our program. We have normally wished to go out on leading. If we wait around much too prolonged, it’ll be much too late for us to start anything new.”
“Men and women are like, ‘I know, I get it. You’re exhausted,'” she reported. “But no, no, we are not drained. We’ve got a good deal additional vitality, but we just want to start to set it on a thing else.”
As the restaurant approaches its 22nd calendar year, the couple is prepared for the subsequent chapter. When they acquired the house, the place they also live, they were being on the lookout for an idyllic city environment with a very good faculty process for their four daughters, then aged 3, 4, seven and eight. Now that they are grown ups, they’ve all moved out, and “we never will need the six-bedroom household Bernard and I are in,” Sarah explained.
The estate at 20 West Lane, comprising the cafe constructing and the Bouissou’s property on 1.93 acres of land, is outlined with Colliers at $3 million.
The Bouissous satisfied as chefs in New York City in the 1980s, doing work jointly at Le Cirque. They married on Bastille Working day in France in 1990, and moved to Norwalk in 1992, continuing their culinary careers in the city: Bernard at Tavern on the Inexperienced and Sarah working her possess catering small business. Bernard also afterwards served as executive chef at La Panetiere in Rye, N.Y.
“We ended up seeking to get our very own position, and we’d say, in a perfect earth, we’d locate a restaurant with a dwelling on the home with a excellent school program and a terrific city,” Sarah reported.
1 working day, Sarah and her catering manager drove by the home in Ridgefield, and the manager pointed it out to her. “Six months afterwards, we owned it,” she stated.
Just a handful of months soon after Bernard’s opened, the Bouissous attained a four-star assessment in the New York Times, in which critic Patricia Brooks raved about the foie gras trio (“an exquisite threesome!”) which is however one particular of the most beloved dishes on the menu. The cafe has also gained a lot of Wine Spectator awards for its wine record.
As the state faced financial downturn in 2008, the couple grew anxious that men and women would not be expending dollars on high-quality dining. They resolved to introduce Sarah’s Wine Bar, with a significantly less high-priced and far more everyday menu and vibe in the restaurant’s upstairs seating spot.
The new principle was these kinds of a accomplishment that company inspired them to transform the total restaurant into Sarah’s, but the Bouissous remained trustworthy that fantastic dining would return — and it did, Sarah stated, with Bernard’s rebounding about two decades later.
The COVID-19 pandemic failed to even specifically slow them down, she claimed. While other fine eating restaurants pivoted to providing far more informal takeout and relatives-style foods, Bernard’s stored its main menu offered, getting treatment to plate dishes like the foie gras trio and rack of lamb as artfully as doable in to-go containers.
“We made the decision we desired to continue to be who we ended up, and folks truly appreciated it. We failed to really shift to a different formula,” Sarah reported. “We have generally been a unique occasion position. We tried using to make it specific, even however you weren’t listed here.”
As Bernard’s welcomed company back again for indoor dining, they made the decision to merge the menus, featuring “the very best of Sarah’s and Bernard’s” in each spaces. Attendees searching for the more official practical experience sit in the Bernard’s eating home, and all those wanting a much more casual evening out will pick the upstairs Sarah’s seating.
For their up coming phase, the Bouissous stated they’re seeking to open up a gourmand retailer with organized food items, and possibly proceed catering, “but just not a restaurant,” Sarah mentioned. “We might like to shut the doorway at 6:30, 7 [p.m.] and have a very little little bit of an evening everyday living.”
They you should not have a distinct locale in head for that new venture, because they are not sure how long the sale could acquire. The restaurant will run commonly till it really is offered, with upcoming strategies for Xmas Eve and New Year’s dinners.
“We are both equally type of firm believers that the universe is heading to current the ideal area for us,” Sarah stated. “We are not genuinely hunting, because we’re ready to see…we could be in this article for a different 12 months, or two years. We are putting it out there to the universe.”
Sarah mentioned some of her favorite memories from the cafe involve out of doors Bastille Working day wine dinners in Bernard’s gardens, and birthday events for her daughters, wherever Bernard would provide their friends into the kitchen area and bake cakes with them. All 4 daughters have worked at the restaurant or with the catering company in several roles, as hosts, bartenders and sous cooks.
“We’ve usually wished to be element of the group…my hope is whoever requires in excess of, they’ll have a similar frame of mind,” she stated. “There is certainly anything unique about this setting up. It was crafted in 1875. It can be been a cafe because 1946. And it really is only had a few proprietors. That is an remarkable operate for for a cafe, and so there is some good power in these partitions for the following [owner.]”
“It is not heading to be the exact,” she mentioned. “But there’s a whole lot of actually proficient cooks out there who have vision, and who have strategies and desires…I know that person or individuals are out there.”
