La Belle Terre really delivers, except for the vegetable soup

Most restaurants are all about the bread these days; the minority who aren’t are missing the boat. The key word “artisanal” brings to mind somebody behind a potter’s wheel and why shouldn’t it? There’s a parallel there; if you don’t believe me, remember that (according to Mark Twain, anyway), the mother of the great poet Robert Burns, upon seeing an imposing memorial to her son, lamented, “Ah, Robbie, ye asked them for bread and they hae gi’en ye a stane.”

But I digress.

Our current appreciation for bread is reborn — one of those times we decided that, gee, maybe the old ways are better after all — and we’ve accordingly borrowed from a number of culinary traditions, most notably the French, who always did know how to bake a decent loaf and never really stopped.

And so it is with La Belle Terre, which is, foremost, a French bakery. Where you find a French bakery you’ll find good French bread, and where you find good French bread, you generally will find one heck of a sandwich. And so we weren’t really surprised that the Rustic ($8.50) was served on a finely grained, uber-crusty loaf, piled high with thinly sliced prosciutto and slabs of mozzarella. What impressed us was the potent pesto that had been spread across the sandwich, including onto slices of a hard-cooked egg, which added just a touch of richness.

But of course the French are known for their crepes as well, and La Belle Terre’s are right up there, in both sweet and savory variants. The Cream ’n Mushrooms ($7.50) was a large crepe maybe 12 inches across that had been lightly sprinkled with cheese during the grilling process. Then it had been topped with a whole bunch of lightly sauteed mushrooms, some sauteed onions and Swiss cheese and sour cream, before the edges were folded over, forming a square that covered the large plate. If it sounds rich it’s because it was; we ended up taking half home.

We’d hardly expect to get out of a French bakery without a French pastry, and La Belle Terre had a pretty extensive selection, including the Elvis, with peanut butter and banana. We went with a more traditional coffee eclair ($4.90), the chewy, creamy pate a choux enclosing a ribbon of coffee-flavored custard and topped with a ribbon of icing.

And then there was the soup. We had the French onion and the daily vegetable, a cup of each ($3.50, or $7.50 for a bowl), and it was the classic split decision. The former was, as we expected from a cup-sized serving, not as cheese-gilded as some, but the stock had good beefy flavor, the onions had just enough spark and there wasn’t an excess of salt, which often is the case.

But the vegetable? Well, we never did figure out what kind of vegetable it was. Clearing the palate and isolating it from all other flavors, the best we could make out was maybe a hint of English peas. It was as if they’d just sort of tossed together whatever vegetables were on hand, which normally is a great idea, but in this case the flavor was just sort of indistinctly muddy, a state exacerbated in that it was a cream-style soup. That it was served lukewarm didn’t add to the appeal.

La Belle Terre is a pleasant, fairly open space, with a quasi-industrial feel communicated by pressed-tin ceilings and decorative fans. It’s counter service, with employees bringing the food in the sequence desired (as opposed to whenever it happens to come out of the kitchen) and offers little extras like a dispenser of citrus-infused water in the dining area. And except for that vegetable soup, the food was excellent.

Maybe we should have quit while they were ahead.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Email Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Find more of her stories at www.reviewjournal.com and follow @HKRinella on Twitter.