Post by @columbusgeorgiaeats

We missed the grand opening of Lou Lou’s Bistro & Foster’s Bar, so my wife & I stopped by for their very first brunch. 📍1350 13th Street, Columbus, GA, in the same plaza as Jarfly. Lou Lou’s is Chef Scott & Wesley’s dream, with the downstairs bistro & upstairs bar named after their dogs, Lou Lou & Foster. And yes, this is under new ownership. We started w/ the bottomless mimosas before getting serious about the food. My wife ordered the deviled eggs, and she’s a tough critic when it comes to deviled eggs. These weren’t trying to reinvent anything. The filling was smooth, creamy, properly seasoned & simply tasted like a really well-made deviled egg. But the fried green tomatoes… That’s when everything clicked. Fried green tomatoes sound simple, but they’re surprisingly easy to get wrong. The batter falls off, they’re greasy, or the tomato turns mushy. None of that happened here. The coating stayed thin & crisp, my fork sliced cleanly through every piece, and the breading never once separated from the tomato. You got the crunch first, then the slight tartness of the tomato. The bacon Vidalia dressing brought a sweet, savory richness, while the pickled onions added enough acidity to brighten everything back up before the next bite. I’m putting my name on this. These are the best fried green tomatoes I’ve had in Columbus. Next was the Chesapeake crab cake, which made perfect sense once I learned about Chef Scott’s Virginia roots and his family’s connection to the Chesapeake Bay. It was larger than I expected, with a browned crust outside and large pieces of sweet crab inside. It wasn’t packed with breading or filler, and I would easily come back just for this crab cake. The Douglas took those same fried green tomatoes and turned them into a sandwich w/ bacon, pimento cheese, romaine & toasted sourdough. It reminded me of a BLT, but richer. The bacon added salt and crunch, the pimento cheese made it creamy, and the toasted sourdough held everything together without the sandwich turning soft or falling apart. Then came the shrimp & grits, and this was one of my favorite dishes of the meal. The shrimp were large, tender & cooked perfectly. The grits were creamy, the andouille added smoke and a little spice, and the peppers, onions & celery gave the dish some sweetness and texture. The Creole cream sauce pulled everything together and soaked down into the grits, so every bite had a little bit of everything. The steak frites were another favorite. A full steak was sliced over a pile of crisp fries, and the steak was cooked exactly how we wanted it. The herbed butter melted down into the meat and fries, adding richness without covering up the flavor of the steak. And yes, that was an actual steak on top of those fries. Not a few frozen fajita strips pretending to be one. The sourdough French toast had a caramelized crust around the edges while staying soft in the middle. The sourdough gave it enough texture that it never turned soggy, and it honestly didn’t need much syrup. It came w/ fresh blueberries, several pieces of bacon & creamy cheese grits, so the whole plate felt like a complete brunch instead of just a few slices of French toast. We finished w/ Wesley’s grandmother’s warm “apple stuff” topped w/ vanilla ice cream. It reminded me of something between a cobbler & a soufflé. The dessert was warm, soft and comforting, while the cold vanilla ice cream melted down into it and gave you that hot-and-cold contrast in every bite. And somewhere during brunch, I finally realized why this meal felt so different. Chef Scott wasn’t trying to impress us by adding more.He was letting good technique do the work. Nothing felt overloaded. Every ingredient belonged on the plate, and every dish still tasted like what it was supposed to be. The presentation was beautiful. Service was excellent. And every single thing we ordered exceeded our expectations. We walked in expecting a good brunch. We walked out already planning our next visit.