The weather cooperated for the FICS dinner, providing comfortably warm temperatures and low humidity – perfect conditions for a meal on the Bastille restaurant’s outside terrace.  FICS members took full advantage of the evening’s conditions, staying until well after 11:00 p.m.

The evenings’ menu began with calamari and shrimp beignets (which has become a signature dish at Bastille). They were accompanied by wild boar sausage with a home-made compote, as well as salmon rillettes on toast.

It’s teamwork as Chef Poteaux (in the background) oversees the FICS dinner’s preparation. Poteaux and his pastry chef wife Michelle Garbee founded Bastille in August 2006, and the restaurant has become well known for its "bistro gastro" cuisine – attracting regulars from Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and beyond.

The first course was sautéed sea scallops with fresh basil pesto, along with a Provencale ratatouille. Bastille’s focus is on local and organic food, relying whenever possible on products from the region’s farmers who come to the local markets.

Chef Poteaux’ second course was a roasted milk-fed baby veal rack. It was served with heirloom tomato concassee, Yukon potato mashed with olive oil and sea salt, as well as organic green beans.

The organic red dandelion salad was the evening’s third course, accompanied by a goat cheese cromesqui and fresh organic red currant. The cromesqui technique, which presents the goat cheese in a crust as a croquette, and is known to date back to the Russian royal court.

The FICS’ terrace dinner was capped off by a Bastille-inspired variation on the popular “ile flottante” dessert. This version used a meringue “island” with a fresh soup created from seasonal fruit.