Etats-Unis

It’s a bit confusing at first. A sign hanging outside identifies the place as Lafayette. To muddle things even further, the new name – Etats-Unis French American Bistro – prepares you for… well, let’s see. Cassoulet, pommes soufflé, béarnaise, compôte – a whole string of words that require an accent on the dinner menu.

There doesn’t seem to be much American going on. But the puzzle is easily solved. “Where I was going with that was the ingredients,” explains chef and owner Soerke Peters. “It’s traditional French technique with local and American product.”

But the cheese – well, that’s French.The lean, fruity zest that perks gruyere before it plunges toward a more mellow, earthiness completes onion soup (do they call it French onion in France?) like no other, drawing on the grassy sweetness in the root vegetable and the sturdy, rough-hewn savor of consommé. It is French onion soup you would expect to find in aged old world bistros where tradition does not bow to convenience.

Peters does not take shortcuts with his beef bourguignon, either. Yeah, it’s a basic stew, full of carrots that tell of the soil in sweet terms and potatoes soaking up broth. Beef cheek is dense in flavor and rustic in nature, it swells with a cured fruit baritone. But it’s the wonderfully pervasive sauce that wraps your palate and stays with you. Rich, intense and meaty, it speaks of cast iron and dried currant, the hearth and dusty bottles of wine pulled from an earthen cellar – the result of low heat and a lot of patience, maybe five hours worth.

“It’s basically the juices of the beef and tons of red wine,” Peters says. “You can’t wing that one.”

And that’s the beauty of Etats-Unis. The dishes are of the country and working classes, hearty meals to satisfy a long and zealous day of labor. Slathering a hunk of bread with pork fat is not for the kale and smoothie set… although the chef suggests it should be.

Mangalitsa is known as the Kobe beef of the porcine world. Lean meat makes up barely 30 percent of the animal, the rest being fat (and hair – it’s a shaggy breed). But it’s good fat, loaded in the things dieticians recommend, like omega-3 and antioxidants. Who really cares, though, when the rillette Peters conjures from it is so damn gorgeous. A luxurious pad of creamy, nutty fat spreads over the bread like a meat-tinged butter. Shards of ruddy pork lend an impression of fallow fields and grassy sweetness – something complemented by a sparing addition of herbs.

“It’s good for you,” the chef assures. “You can eat it all day long.” Even if it isn’t good for you… well, what a way to go.

For the Steak frites, Peters prepares hanger steak seasoned as if he started to sprinkle salt and pepper but pulled up suddenly. You experience silken red meat in all its glistening glory. Yet frites are the real talking point, here – steak-cut fries with a crispy sheen of so frail you may not even notice the golden crust, as it barely contains the billowy cloud of potato inside.

Etats-Unis is an easy place to love.

ETATS-UNIS FRENCH AMERICAN BISTRO Dolores between Fifth and Sixth, Carmel. 7am-3pm and 5-9pm daily. 238-6010, etatsuniscarmel.com.