August 6, 2008 - Northern Ohio Live Magazine released their 2008 Best Restaurant poll results. The poll is based on responses from its readers. The magazine listed the results of the top three vote-getters in each catergory. Light Bistro is proud to have placed highly in several catergories.
Best Restaurant in Cleveland
1. Flying Fig
2. Light Bistro
3. Parallax
Best Service
1. Red the Steakhouse - Beachwood
2. Ristorante Giovanni’s - Beachwood
3. Light Bistro - Cleveland
Best Bartender
1. Thomas Barberic - Light Bistro
2. Kim Paradise – Red the Steakhouse
Best Ambience
1. Ristorante Giovanni’s - Beachwood
2. Light Bistro - Cleveland
3. Pier W - Lakewood
Congratulations to Chef Matt and his team! Thank you to Northern Ohio Live and their readers! We appreciate the positive response and pledge to continue cooking our way and helping people see the Light
Fabulous Food Show’s Best Sous Chef Competition
On Monday October 6th at 4:30pm, watch Light Bistro’s Sous Chef Karl Williams compete in the first round of the Fabulous Food Show’s Best Sous Chef Competition. The competition will take place at Trevarrow’s Living Kitchen Showroom in Parma, with the finals at the Fabulous Food Show’s main kitchen theater on November 14th. Chef Karl with be competing against Sous Chef’s from Fahrenheit and Swingos in the first round. Stop down and help root Chef Karl to victory.
Monday Tapas and Tasting Series
The next tasting will be Monday October 13th at 6:30pm. The wines and tapas will focus on the Northern Italy region. Check our website soon for further details regarding the menu and wine selections.
The cost is $25, not including tax and tip. Reservations are recommended. Contact Light Bistro at 216-771-7130 for more details or to reserve your space today.
Celebrate Sweetest Day at Light Bistro
Celebrate Sweetest Day weekend at Light Bistro. Chef Matt has created an exciting prix fixe dinner menu that will be available starting on Thursday the 16th and will remain a dining option throughout the weekend of the 17th and 18th.
“The Sweetheart Special”
A four course menu for $80.00 per couple
The first course will be an amuse served with a glass of wine.
Courses two and three will offer 2 selections to choose from.
The fourth course will be dessert
Additional Beverages, tax and gratuity are not included in prices.
Reservations are recommended.
Our a la carte dinner menu will also be available on all evenings at regular prices.
Don’t be left out! Book your table now!
Call 216-771-7130 today.
Light Bistro’s Vegetarian Dinner
On Wednesday October 22nd at 7 p.m., Light Bistro will continue its series of Vegetarian Dinners. Chef Matt will create a 5-course meal of fresh early Fall vegetables that will please all. Cost: $35 exclusive of tax, tip and beverages.
For an additional $20, we will pair your meal with recommended wines to complete the evening. Reservations recommended. Call 216-771-7130 to sign up or for further details.
Light Bistro and J Palen House Special:
Receive a 10% discount at Light Bistro during your stay at the J Palen House Bed & Breakfast. The J Palen House is located directly across the street from Light Bistro at 2708 Bridge Ave, Cleveland OH.
Contact the J Palen House at 216-664-0813 for details.
Light Bistro’s Happy Hour Specials
We are pleased to add to our Happy Hour menu options. The details are listed below.
Happy Hour Specials
Monday - Friday
4:30 – 7:00pm
All Bar Menu food items for $5.00 each.
5 domestic beers for $5.00
5 specialty beers for $7.50
Single specialty beers for $2.00
Glass of wine for $5.00
Bottle of wine for $10.00
Specialty cocktails for $3.00
What can be better than tasty food and cool drinks at really great prices! Let Light Bistro take your cares away. It’s a great way to relax from a hard day or a better way to start the evening off right.
In March of 2007, Light Bistro opened with the idea of creating a new dining experience for Clevelanders. Over the last 12 months it has been wonderfully received. The response and feedback from our dining customers has been overwhelmingly positive. The reviews from the local media have been equally as impressive.
During 2007 Light Bistro was fortunate to receive many awards. Including;
Light Bistro is thankful for the honors. We appreciate all of those who believe in what we are accomplishing.
Matthew Mathlage is Light Bistro’s chef. Underscore chef. He is passionate about the food, the menu, and the preparation and cooking of it. Unlike a lot of chefs, he prefers to work behind the line, not in front of it, merely expediting.
Mathlage invents (there is no better word) the menu, prepares and cooks the ingredients side-by-side with his line cooks. He does it all. That’s the way he wants it. “If all I was doing was expediting, I’d lose my enthusiasm for the job,” he said. Rest assured, however, that long before plates leave the kitchen, they’ve been “expedited” by Chef Matt (as he likes to be called) and the rest of the cooks. They are inspected scrupulously to make sure the dish is exactly what the guest ordered. “I’m constantly on the line,” he says, “never in the office. Best part of the job is the creative control I have of the menu.”
Chef Matt calls his style of cooking, “progressive American,” and that lends itself to an assortment of interpretations and permutations. There are, he says, infusions of Eurasian, French, and Italian cuisine as well as representational dishes from the Carolinas, low country Louisiana, the southwest, everything modified to reflect decidedly Midwest flavors.
The menu features 20 small plates, 10 to 12 traditional large plates, either for sharing or for a solo indulgence. Prices range from $3 to $14 for the small plates; $14 to $40 for the large plates. There are two special small-plate tasting menus, one, Chef Matt describes as “our market menu,” fashioned daily according to what’s available at local markets; the other, a combination of small plates, is offered at a special price. Regular small plates include portions of ahi tuna, braised oxtail, Kobe short ribs, eggplant flan. Large plates feature Colorado lamb, venison, rib-eye, and farm-raised trout.
In Eric Dietrich, COO, co-owner, and longtime buddy, Chef Matt has the ideal left-brained partner. He relieves Mathlage of most of the P&L responsibilities, allowing him ample time to cook, expedite, and massage the menu. “We’ve known each other for a long time,” says Dietrich. “We have a great working relationship: he stays out of my way and I stay out of his. I believe in Matt: his style, the way he cooks, and his ability to create and think-out recipes. At the end of the day, we succeed or fail based on what the staff and Matt do in the kitchen.”
A few final notes: no tap water is served; distilled water is poured; bottled waters are offered. Most wines, priced from $30 to $40, are from single vineyards. Forty-percent are U.S., the rest from France (mostly organic), Italy, Spain, Chile, and Australia. The tea your grandmother used to make from Hibiscus is available hot and iced. The coffee is organic; the bread house made.
Says Chef Matt, “Ninety-percent of what we offer is made here from scratch.”