AIGO BISTRO
84 Thoreau St., Concord
(Concord Depot)
(978) 371-1333
(Directions)

Restaurant reviewed 12/28/97 by Sheryl Julian

AIGO BISTRO Type: Mediterraean Prices: Appetizers, $4-$10.50; entrees, $15-$23.75; desserts, $5.25-$5.95. Three-course meal, with moderately priced wine and coffee, including tax and tip: about $55 per person. Good choices: Appetizers: panisses; grilled shrimp and squid; Caesar salad. Entrees: pepita crusted salmon; grilled pork loin; beef filet bordelaise. Desserts: trio of sorbets; flourless chocolate cake. Hours: Lunch: Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; Dinner: Mon.-Sat. 5:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m.; Sunday brunch: 11:30-3:30, Sunday dinner begins at 5 p.m. Reservations suggested. Credit cards: All major credit cards. Access: No handicapped access.

"I know what a reservation is for," the car rental agent is telling an angry Jerry Seinfeld.

"You know how to take a reservation," he tells her. "You just don't know how to hold a reservation."

We pull into the Concord Depot, where Aigo Bistro is located, one flight up, and walk into a "Seinfeld" script. Our reservation is lost, and no tables are available in the main dining room. By the time Bob and Susan arrive, we are the only guests in an upstairs dining room, with the heat turned to "blast" to warm it quickly. Bob whispers, "What'd we do to earn Siberia?"

We are huddled over a plateful of panisses, beautifully crisp and golden chickpea-flour fritters, which Moncef Meddeb, Aigo's owner, has perfected. Meddeb, who is Tunisian, was raised in Paris with summers in Tunisia. Panisses, like his hot and garlicky marinated olives, come from the south of France.

Things go awry after the nibbles. Meddeb tells me on the phone a week later that "everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong." It reminds him of an embarrassing moment at a famous Parisian restaurant, and the owner was at his table. Meddeb's sweet pear souffle arrived in a cup that had been dusted all over with salt.

That doesn't happen. Lots else does, and even a very gracious and skilled waitress can't save the night. The restaurant has no fish, except for salmon. Once we order, the kitchen loses one of our entrees. The waitress charmingly persuades us to try the pasta special as a substitute -- generous spaghetti tossed with tiny fresh corn-on-the-cob and thick slices of chicken. It is nicely presented, but not especially highly seasoned or interesting.

A filet steak is perfectly cooked, medium rare, as ordered, but the meat is bland. Pork chops ordered pink arrive overcooked, unquestionably reheated, the garnishes cold. Two soups, including the signature Aigo Bouido, which is a bowlful of roasted garlic and vegetable stock, are barely lukewarm.

Crusty salmon, with a pumpkin-seed coating and tastes of cumin, cilantro, pine nuts, and charred tomatoes, might be splendid, but the Middle Eastern couscous on which it sits is burstingly plump, having absorbed all the juices in the dish.

The waitress appears with a complimentary bottle of wine. We return another night and it could be another restaurant. We sit in the main dining room, where the design matches Aigo's Mediterranean cuisine. In the striking evening light, with commuter trains arriving at the station below, we feel as if we're on another continent in another time. Is this Avignon?

Naji Bouchaib, Meddeb's chef, is in the kitchen. Meddeb knows how to shape talent, and his ambitious tutees can shine under him.

Meddeb is deeply intellectual with a broad sense of history, which isn't uncommon among the top Boston chefs. He graduated from Harvard and went to cook at Seven Central, in Manchester, where he had a piece of the business. In 1978, he opened the restaurant L'Espalier in the Back Bay, which defined elegance (still does).

He sold it 10 years ago and dabbled in a bunch of other ventures with businessman Pierre Jospe, including Harvard Book Store Cafe on Newbury Street; Aigo, opened in 1992; then 8 Holyoke, opened in Cambridge in 1994 and sold two years later.

At Holyoke, he cooked with Ana Sortun, an adventurous, gutsy, and confident chef who is now at Casablanca in Cambridge. Meddeb spends his mornings at International Place in Boston, where he oversees lunch in an arrangement with Creative Gourmet, the commercial caterers.

He draws up menus for Aigo, which Bouchaib executes. On the second visit, Bouchaib is in charge of the kitchen. The Moroccan-born chef comes by this aromatic cuisine naturally.

Pasta of the day sings with an intense puttanesca sauce, loaded with tapenade, tossed with spaghetti, squid, and shrimp. The grilled pork is pink and tender, beside a layered vegetable terrine of sweet potatoes and spinach. The beef filet bordelaise, with a tent of grilled asparagus and an intense mushroomy red wine sauce, has fine beef flavor and the celebrated tenderness of filet.

Crusty salmon is transformed with a roasted tomato broth holding tiny grains of Israeli couscous, two arcs of that wonderful cumin-flavored salmon, and tastes of pine nuts, mint, and chili. It could be bolder still, as could much of the food. I find myself wanting to reach for the salt, which several guests do.

Again the crisp, golden panisses and spicy olives are perfectly executed. The Caesar of whole romaine leaves and plump vinegary anchovies, lush with creamy dressing, is as nice this salad gets.

Grilled shrimp and squid with chorizo sausage, over tomato-flavored rice with a hint of saffron, is a kind of shorthand paella offered as an appetizer. Smoky and briny and hot, it comes draped with a roasted Anaheim chili on top.

A bowlful of lobster bisque boasts pounded-shell flavor in the broth, but I mind the edge of raw chopped fennel garnishing this fine classic. Alas, the Aigo bouido soup is only warm again.

Our service is friendly and efficient, and though the dining room has emptied early, we order the flourless chocolate cake, made by Sweet Creations; the chocolate aficionados adore it. Three sorbets from Cambridge ice cream maker Toscanini -- mango, blueberry, and boysenberry, with blackberrycoulis drizzled on them -- seem to be the only way to finish the meal.

The cup of sorbets is not dusted with salt. Hopefully Meddeb's never will be again, either.