If ever there was proof of Oklahoma City’s cultural momentum, it’s in the details of Midtown’s new French bistro. It’s in the lamp-lit booths, surrounded by vintage French art and maps of Paris. It’s by the moody bar, where intimate wooden alcoves drown out extraneous noise, and focus the sound around your dinner date. And it’s all over the menu, from a pitch-perfect crock of French onion soup, bubbling under a caramelized crown of comté gratiné, to a strong contender for OKC’s best new burger, laced with foie gras aïoli on buttery sesame seed buns. This is Le Parisien, a game-changing French venture in the former Cafe Do Brasil space in Midtown.
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The vision of co-owners Alain Jeu and Dustin Lancaster, the latter of whom co-owns Bar Arbolada, Le Parisien fills a void in OKC, while cementing the city as a serious culinary contender on a national scale. The storied space, once known for feijoada and caipirinhas, is unrecognizable from its Brazilian past—Jeu and Lancaster designed the space themselves and implemented thoughtful details, like two-person booths crafted for sound control, and extended ends of the bar, allowing for extra stools. The most thoughtful approach of all, though, is filling a French void in a fast-growing city with a fast-rising reputation as a dining destination.
The two have known each other for 20 years, and worked in the restaurant industry together in Los Angeles, where Lancaster—a native Oklahoman—owns more than a dozen hospitality concepts. “We wanted to open another restaurant together, but we didn’t want to do it in L.A.,” said Jeu, a French-born restaurateur who immigrated to San Francisco in 1986, working his way from dishwasher to food and beverage director at L.A.’s iconic Chateau Marmont. “Dustin said, ‘You know what, there’s only one French restaurant in Oklahoma City; there’s room for another one.’”
As Jeu mused, “We decided to try Oklahoma City, but wait, is there good baguette?” A crucial ingredient for a quality bistro, after all. The duo flew to OKC and went directly from the airport to The Harvey Bakery. “I ordered a croissant and a baguette,” Jeu recalled. “I had half the croissant and started to eat the baguette, and I turned to Dustin and said, ‘We’ll be fine here.’” The Harvey supplies all of the baguettes, breads and burger buns for Le Parisien.
The next ingredient was finding the right chef. “We knew we could find somebody who could cook,” Jeu said. “But if you want to open a French restaurant, anywhere in the world, there’s a pool of chefs that know French cuisine because they’ve worked in a French restaurant.” One such chef is Bryant Gallegos, an alum of Petit Trois, which Jeu calls the best French restaurant in Los Angeles. Lancaster approached him about opening a French bistro. He just forgot to mention that the bistro would be in OKC, not L.A. Calling it his dream to open a French bistro, Gallegos took a leap of faith by moving to a city he had never visited.
“This is gonna be my opportunity to step outside my comfort zone, and do something unique and different,” Gallegos said. At the helm of Le Parisien, he’s adding his own flavor. Citing technique and quality as guiding tenets, the c
hef is striving to make great food feel casual and accessible—French food, he noted, is simple. You’re not hiding behind 15 ingredients on a single plate; you’re allowing the quality to shine, be it a steaming bowl of mussels, redolent with garlic and white wine, or a French omelette, made simply with farm eggs, herbs and Boursin cheese. That ethos, of emphasizing quality and frequenting farmers markets, resonates throughout the menu. “That goes for anything and everything I put on my menu,” he said, “including our burger. We’re grinding our own beef in-house, using buns from The Harvey. There’s nothing like trimming your own meat.”
With Gallegos manning the kitchen, and Jeu a newly minted resident of Oklahoma City, greeting guests on a daily basis, Le Parisien already feels like an instant classic. “We are really happy with the way it turned out,” Jeu said. “The chef, the look of the place, our staff is great. Our bar manager is also the bar manager at Bar Arbolada, and our cocktails are insane.”
From the menu to the design, brimming with French art and convivial booths, the restaurant is adding something special to the local food scene. “Everyone has been responding really well to what we are offering,” Jeu noted. “We’re really happy to be here.”
