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
Join Light Bistro and Fresh Fork Farms on Wednesday August 20th at 7:00pm for a Twist on Popular Wine Dinners – Seasonal, Local Foods Emphasized
Fresh Fork Market has partnered with Light Bistro to offer an exclusive menu of local foods and a wine dinner. The dinners’ first focus is on the local foods aspect; the second is on the wine. So why not call it a Local Foods Dinner? “Well, it just sounds weird,” claims Fresh Fork Market co‐founder Trevor Clatterbuck. Fresh Fork Market is an innovative solution to deliver local farm products directly from the farm to restaurants. The model allows growers to set their own price and compete for a restaurant’s business on Fresh Fork Market’s web‐portal. Once orders are placed, Fresh Fork Market arranges for the logistics to move the product directly from the farm to the restaurant within 24 hours of harvest. The model is limited to a supply chain of less than 75 miles outside of Cleveland.
In the Wine Dinner, Fresh Fork Market has partnered with Light Bistro to provide them with unique and high quality ingredients for the meal. Chef Matt even has the option of bringing in the farmer to serve the role that the wine representative usually would – to educate the diners on their meal. The combination of the highest quality ingredients and one of Cleveland’s most creative and talented chefs will ensure a splendid dining experience!
Rising star Chef Matthew Mathlage knows his focus well: “Provide the best tasting food from the best ingredients and your customers will appreciate it.” Light Bistro in Ohio City has proven this statement right. Mathlage’s business is growing steadily and rapidly earning him some of the best reviews in Cleveland. One of his underlying principles of the restaurant is to use local products. Chef Matt recognizes the freshness, quality, and flavor are the characteristics that he can’t control in the kitchen. Great talent paired with great products make Light Bistro a true jewel in Cleveland’s dining scene.
Join Chef Matt and the Fresh Fork team on Wednesday, August 20th at 7:00 PM for a celebration of local foods. The cost is $55 per person. Paired wines from Spain are included in the price. Tax and tip are not included. Reservations are recommended. The menu includes:
Course One
Creamless Corn Soup
Lake Erie Creamery Goat Cheese and Lavender Panna Cotta/Candied Pecans
Course Two
Veal Stuffed Banana Peppers
Spiced Tomato Jam/ Provolone/ Opal Basil and Aged Provolone Sauce
Course Three
Smoked Sturgeon
Roasted Beets/ Celery Salad/ Horseradish Vinaigrette
Course Four
Salt Crusted Lamb
Pickled Heirloom Tomatoes/Broccoli Rabe and Chicken and Apple Sausage/Foie Gras Emulsion
Course Five
Chilled Peach and Prosecco Soup
Lavender Shortcake/ Vanilla Ice Cream
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.”