Bernard Tronche didn’t come to Texas to open a restaurant. He left southwest France in his twenties with a few friends, planning to see the Americas, and wound up in Dallas working construction.
It was his mother who got him out of that. She called from France and told him to look up a friend at Calluaud, Guy Calluaud’s French place on McKinney Avenue. Tronche started there waiting tables. He walked to work every day from a cheap hotel downtown, and he paid as much attention to the kitchen as he did to his tables.
He made captain. He also met Karin Kelly, who was reporting TV news in Dallas at the time. They’ve been married more than 40 years now.
Eventually Tronche wanted a room of his own. Friends told the couple to skip Dallas and try Fort Worth, which could use the restaurants. He barely knew the town. He has said there was no plan B.
Saint-Emilion opened March 8, 1985, in the little brick A-frame on West Seventh where it still sits. Fort Worth hadn’t seen much like it. You could watch the cooks work, and the fish was flown in fresh and written up on a chalkboard each day. Tronche likes to say he was just trying to make rent.
The fish did well enough that he opened La Marée, a market that sold seafood and French wine back before Central Market came to town. Over the years he also had Tutti Pazzi, Sapristi, Paco & John and Paris 7th. Those are all sold or closed. Saint-Emilion is the one he held onto, and in 2018 he stripped it back to the casual country bistro it started as.
You’ll probably find him at the door. He still works as maître d’ and still does the books, and he and Karin still go to France at least once a year, sometimes with regulars in tow. He has no patience for what he calls tweezer food. One look at the dinner menu tells you that.
Dinner is a $59 prix fixe that gets you a first course, a main and a plate of cheese and salad. Four of the starters come with the price, and the others run a small supplement. Every main is included except the Steak au Poivre and the Dover sole, which carry a little extra.
For a first course, the Escargot Bourguignonne is the old standby, six snails in garlic and parsley butter with rounds of puff pastry on top. The Terrine de Campagne is a coarse duck and pork pâté with pistachios and cherries, served with cornichons and grainy mustard. There’s French onion soup, the Soupe à l’Oignon Les Halles, made the way they do it in Paris.
If you’d rather go big early, order the Gratin de Fruits de Mer. Lobster, scallops and shrimp go into a Mornay sauce with Gruyère browned over the top. The Tartiflette is a potato dish from the Alps, thin slices layered with melted cheese, caramelized onion and speck. There’s also a Tartare de Bœuf made from tenderloin, with truffle chips on the side.
The duck has been the signature here for years. The Magret de Canard Griottines is a duck breast cooked like a steak and served medium to medium-rare. It comes in a brandied cherry sauce, with duck fat potatoes, confit and wild mushrooms alongside.
The Steak au Poivre is tenderloin in a cognac and black pepper sauce, with skinny fries and haricots verts. Veau Marengo is veal shoulder braised in white wine with tomato, mushroom and potato. Lamb lovers get Côtes d’Agneau, grilled chops with a tomato stuffed with ratatouille, roasted garlic purée and jus.
The Dover sole, Sole à la Française, comes whole with lemon, parsley, shallots and brown butter. There isn’t always enough to go around, so ask early.
Before dessert comes the cheese course. It’s two cheeses with garden greens in the house vinaigrette and a fig and walnut jam, and on CraveDFW’s last visit it beat dessert.
Lots of French cooks have passed through Fort Worth since 1985. Tronche is still on West Seventh 41 years later, and he says hardly a week goes by without somebody telling him they come back every year on their anniversary.
Saint-Emilion is at 3617 W. Seventh St. in Fort Worth and serves dinner Wednesday through Sunday. Call 817-737-2781 for a table.
