Where great classic dishes are concerned, few come close to the pure pleasure that a well-prepared bowl of French onion soup can bring. The one at Laperaux: The Journeymanchef’s French Bistro, which chef Gregory Webb opened in Germantown a year ago, measures up. After caramelizing onions, he deglazes them with sherry and dry vermouth, adds three stocks (veal, chicken and one made from roasted duck bones), a croustade of toasted French bread and loads of Gruyere cheese and, voilà—a rich, hearty, soul-tickling soup fresh from the broiler with its gooey, stretchy cheese payoff. “I love onion soup and will order it anywhere,” a dining companion in my foursome declares after tasting Webb’s. “I’m usually disappointed, but not here.”
Sadly, though, disappointment isn’t in short supply during my visits to Laperaux—more on that shortly.
Webb, 62, who lives in Lakelands, was the executive chef of Downtown Crown’s Paladar Latin Kitchen & Rum Bar (now closed) from 2014 to 2021. He’s a Texas native who grew up in Connecticut and wanted to become a chef at an early age, inspired, as a generation of American chefs was, by watching cooks such as Graham Kerr and Julia Child on television. He wound up in the DMV to attend George Washington University but abandoned college to pursue his passion, embarking on a restaurant career that took him to such places as New Orleans, Houston, Mexico City and New York City. A chef’s job at Rockville’s Lakewood Country Club brought him back to the DMV in 2009.
Laid off from Paladar during the pandemic, Webb decided to strike out on his own. He settled on the 4,200-square-foot former Gumbo Ya Ya space in Cloppers Mill shopping center because it had good bones: a corner lot with two patios (each seats 25), lots of windows, an open kitchen and a 60-seat dining room with a 48-seat adjoining bar. He opened a French bistro because he felt the area lacked a good one, and he loves that cuisine. He named it Laperaux, he says, because it’s the French word (and spelling of it) that famed chef Auguste Escoffier uses for “wild young rabbit” in his 1903 book Le Guide Culinaire, and it reminds him of his younger days as a “spry young thing.” (Lapereau in French means young rabbit; lapereaux is the plural.) Webb explains that a journeymanchef (intentionally one word, he says, because he trademarked it that way) is someone who does an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
On my first visit, early on a Saturday evening, things seem OK at first. The room is inviting, its sunny yellow walls loaded with bric-a-brac typical of an American French bistro—variously sized framed mirrors; prints of Impressionist paintings; faux red, white and blue flowers and greenery; Eiffel Towers, etc. A piano player tickles the ivories. (He plays Thursday through Saturday.)
Soon after I sit down, I sense that something’s off. Our server alternates between feigned cheerfulness and agitation, relaying how short-staffed the restaurant is. Webb, in his chef togs, mans the host stand. His 14-year-old son, wearing a server’s apron, helps out on the floor. A cocktail order takes longer than it should (they offer free Champagne in the meantime), then arrives missing the chef’s signature cocktail (Cognac, orange juice, Champagne) because they’re out of Cognac. As the dining room fills, I can tell everything’s about to fall apart. Our server is making cocktails and desserts. To his credit, Webb keeps his cool and manages to speak to all the tables, even if leaving the premises for a time to fetch Cognac (or so the server informs us) is probably ill-advised considering the service issues.
Things don’t improve on another visit, when entrees, after a lengthy wait, arrive before the appetizers (including the aforementioned onion soup) and the server (a different one this time; the one on the previous visit told us he was going to quit) suggests that we reverse engineer the meal (entrees first, then appetizers) after admitting he forgot to order the starters. We decline and order a bottle of wine—then a second—to while away the time it takes to get our meal back on track. We order profiteroles for dessert, but they are out of them. Check, please! (Nothing was comped.)
As to the food, some dishes are fine at Laperaux. Escargots sauteed with butter, shallots, garlic, Pernod and red wine demi-glace (rich brown sauce) and served over toast points is a luxuriant upgrade to the usual version with garlic butter. A wedge of Camembert smeared with strawberry jam, baked in puff pastry and topped with hazelnut praline, is decadently satisfying. (And would make a much better dessert option than undercooked poached pears or unremarkable chocolate terrine.) Steamed mussels in tomato saffron broth are great as an entree or a shared appetizer, and the pommes frites that accompany them are first-rate, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.
For entrees, a New York strip encrusted with cracked toasted black pepper and served with green peppercorn cream sauce gets the balance of heat and richness right, even if it was cooked beyond the requested temperature. Coq au vin with mushrooms, pearl onions and truffle porcini glaze is a flavorful rendition of the hearty classic, as is branzino meunière, the fillets tender beneath their sauce of capers, white wine, lemon and butter. A gratin of roasted sea scallops; uber-rich, butter-laden mashed potatoes; and Gruyere cream sauce turns out to be delicious after I send it back to have the translucent scallops baked longer.
I object to Webb’s playing fast and loose with some bistro favorites. What is billed as a Lyonnaise salad (frisée salad with bacon chunks, shallot vinaigrette and poached egg) is made with arugula (I can accept that), a wedged hard-boiled egg (unacceptable) and a dreary dressing. Cassoulet—what should be a rib-sticking, long-cooked, crusty casserole of baked beans and meats—is more like a run-of-the-mill white bean soup, this one with a few shreds of duck meat, some chorizo sausage and flabby pork belly.
Webb attributes staffing woes to his location, claiming that “Germantown is not a hotbed for fine-dining service professionals. To get a server to look to Germantown over Bethesda is a challenge.” He tells me later via text that he has since flipped the entire front-of-the-house staff, attesting that things are running smoothly now.
Observing Webb work the room gregariously and interact with jovial diners, it’s clear that most of them are Laperaux regulars. “The guests are pulling for me, but they do pull me aside and say it was hard to get a second drink or a third one,” he explains. “They tell me to hang in there because they want me to be successful.”
This story appears in the January/February issue of Bethesda Magazine.