Traverse City Record-Eagle,  Aug. 15, 2003
Terry's Place: Simple Pleasures
A friend of ours who enjoys eating good food more than cooking it has a hard and fast rule never to use a recipe with more than three ingredients. We sometimes think that a bit drastic, but then we think of Charlevoix's Terry Left, who has built an entire restaurant's reputation on just such a credo of simplicity.

Terry's Place goes beyond three ingredients, of course, but not very far. All that goes into the signature dish aside from capers, parsley and shallots, are lemon juice, whitefish, and butter to sauté it in. Okay, salt and pepper, too. His recipe Is no less simple: "Sauté whitefish. Combine other ingredients in saucepan and cook over medium high heat until butter has melted. Pour over sautéed fish and serve." He calls the method "Grenoboise," and if you think that suggests France, you'd not be far off target.

Terry's is a little, storefront bistro off the main drag in Charlevoix. It is as simple as the food it serves. The casual tourist might easily miss it, but to knowledgeable locals it is an institution. The proprietor is a local lad whose first job was washing dishes at Grey Gables at the age of 13. By the time he was 15, he knew he wanted to be a chef. After training at the Culinary Institute of America and earning some stripes in Miami, he came back home. Now, years later, he is one of the region's hardiest and most successful restaurant veterans.

His flagship establishment, The Villager, is next door on Bridge Street. Terry's Place, by contrast, is inconspicuously tucked away around the comer on Antrim Street. Inside are a dozen or so white-covered tables surrounded by white brick walls adorned with artwork. The fare is classic French in its simplicity. Left sautés his fish, be they perch, whitefish or walleye, and offers four styles. In the preparation he calls "à la Robinson," the fish is sautéed in oil with garlic and parsley. Fish "almondine" are sautéed, sauced with lemon butter and sprinkled with toasted almonds.  Whitefish is a sort of culinary fetish with Left, who is one of the biggest whitefish customers of one of the area's biggest fisheries. Whitefish Grenoboise, he says, is what he'd serve if a king walked in one night and asked for a dish fit for him, and it is about as complex as Terry gets.

Don't be put off by the fancy French. Language is one thing, cooking another, and if you like simple recipes, Terry's is the place.

Its relaxed pace and quietly efficient service made it perfect for a recent rendezvous with two dear friends, Marj and Svend Teglhoj, just back from a 6-week cruise with many good yarns to spin. In between talk of restaurants in Lisbon and a Moroccan mosque, our eyes fell on the menu, where walleye and perch caught everyone's fancy. Only one of us opted for Grenoboise; the rest chose the even simpler meunière style, lightly floured and sautéed in butter. All were fresh and cooked to flaky perfection, with buttery sauces that enhanced every bite. The portions were generous, although not overwhelming, and all the entrees came with a serving of tiny, crisp, flavorfully seasoned green beans.

The bread, while unremarkable, was fresh and served hot. The salads were fresh and crisp, and the balsamic vinaigrette house dressing richly thick and well balanced. Svend, who has cultivated his old-fashioned fondness for good food in more than a few fine restaurants about the world, paused in a story about cruise-ship meals to declare Terry's classic appetizer of escargots "unusually good."

Just in case you are not a fish lover, we hasten to add that Terry's is hardly one-dimensional. The special that evening, which we did not try, was steak prepared with mushrooms and a Marsala reduction, and the menu ranges from rack of lamb and roast duckling to shrimp Provençale and morel-sauced veal. The appetizers are no less varied, from the escargots and French onion soup, to wine-steamed mussels with garlic, oil and tomato, and Marsala-sauced wild-mushroom raviolis.

The prices at Terry's aren't terribly complicated, either. The four of us lingered over travel stories long enough to polish off a bottle of wine plus a few extra glasses, and even then our bill stopped short of $38 a person. 

Terry's is one of those places we like to go at any season, knowing exactly what we'll find and happy to have it. It is especially appropriate as summer wanes and traffic thins, and we all get back to the simple pleasures of life Up North.

DATA: Terry's Place, 101 Antrim Street, Charlevoix. 231-547-2799.