Bonvenu Restaurant Review

A welcome trend in dining lately has been a focus on good food in a comfortable setting. Fancy dining with classical music and waiters in tuxes serving the finest French cuisine has gone mostly by the wayside, while rock star chefs and hipster waiters serving local products with fusion flair are the new night out. Both types of establishments, though, require one area of consistency and that is quality food. Eating out is a luxury for most people. When shelling out close to $30 for an entrée, we are looking to be wowed.

Perhaps our expectations were raised when checking out the prices, but Bonvenu failed to convince us that our money was well spent. The potential was there on paper in a creative menu, but some changes in execution would go a long way to make it worth the price.

The dining room is splashy, with original art depicting Richmond scenes complementing the huge chandeliers hanging above. We were seated at a table sandwiched in between the end of a booth and a wall, making for cramped quarters for our meal. Much like most of the spots in Carytown, Bonvenu consists of one large room, with crowd noise being an unavoidable consequence.

Our server was friendly and attentive and seemed well at ease working the Friday night crowd without seeming hurried or flustered. She made a few appetizer recommendations, of which we chose the vegetarian butternut squash dumplings ($8) and a bowl of the French onion soup ($10).

The dumplings were tasty and the flavors meshed well with the accompanying crumbled chèvre cheese and walnuts. The dish could have benefitted from a little more squash to bring out more sweetness, but otherwise, the execution was good.

The French onion soup was warm and flavorful on a cold day, but suffered a bit from cheese overload. If you like your cheese with a side of onion, this may be for you, but we found the cheese overpowered the oniony broth.

Our entrees are where things went south. Our choice of the pan-roasted duck breast ($27) was served with roasted baby carrots and corn griddlecakes. The duck breast was cooked to order at medium rare, but a little char to add some crispiness would have added an extra bit of flavor. The advertised sage and sweet onion browned butter sauce was barely detectable, leaving the dish dry and bland. While the roasted baby carrots were delicious, the accompanying corn griddlecakes seemed totally out of place with the dish. With the taste of dry cornmeal pancakes, we were left searching for the maple syrup to no avail.

We were also disappointed in the coffee-crusted, 12-oz. strip loin ($28). For the price, the minimum expectation should be a good piece of meat. The coffee crust added a nice punch of flavor, but even that is wasted when you have to discretely pull the gristle out of your teeth. The gorgonzola cream, on which the steak was served, added nothing. The bacon-smashed Yukon potatoes and grilled baby carrots were good, but hardly enough to detract from the poor cut of meat.

Bonvenu’s shot at redemption came with a first-rate dessert in the pineapple crème brulee. We’ve seen many miscues with flavored crème brulee where the flavor unnecessarily detracts from the custardy goodness of the classic. Bonvenu’s version had only a hint of pineapple sweetness, leaving the rich custard and perfectly torched sugar topping to create a delectable treat.

Like many Richmond establishments, Bonvenu walks the fine line of comfort food and fusion cuisine. There are any number of restaurants in town boasting very similar menus—to justify the pricing, the food has to be very interesting and most important, tasty. Perhaps with the plethora of competition, Bonvenu is losing sight of the basics in favor of standing out from the crowd, but a focus on quality ingredients is needed to go along with the inventive menu.

Jon and Leah Nelson, like most married couples, can’t agree on how the dishwasher should be loaded, so they eat out a lot so someone else can worry about the dishes. As RVA natives, they have had plenty of practice checking out what the city has to offer.