Reprinted from Instagram.
Walking into Circa (@circa1875sav) is like stepping into a live episode of Twin Peaks. It’s melodramatic and dark with quirky characters sprinkled about the bar. There’s the richest man in town, out to destroy the old lumber mill. There’s a one-armed man with a fire walk with me tattoo. There’s a dwarf in a red suit. An underlying sense of offbeat humor with a mix of surrealist French antiquities permeates the restaurant. They could just as easily have a $1,500 bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild in the basement as they could the naked corpse of a homecoming queen wrapped in plastic. The beauty is you never quite know for sure.
The downside is you never quite know for sure about the food either. The trout and carrots were overly drenched in a sea of glistening brown butter, like the skin of a retiree oiled up on the beach in Boca. Pretty sure I’ve had the exact same Caesar salad for free in the Delta Sky Club at JFK. The French onion soup was good, as was the burger. The steak frites, just no. No.
The bar is the place to be here. It does have a good vibe and there’s always a current that feels like anything could happen at any given time and so what if it did no one was going to bat an eye anyway. The staff is cool and they’re in on the joke. They make it fun for everyone around them.
You can check Circa out on one of the three Instagram accounts they have with a total of eleven posts (four of which are from 2014 – early adopters!). Or you can go to their website which is under construction due to a major update. Or you can read one of the dozen reviews online that all cut and pasted the same nonsense about delicious Parisian bistro. Or you can just roll the dice and show up at the bar and hope your hair doesn’t turn white overnight or anyone whispers “the owls are not what they seem” in your ear.