Wilmington, North Carolina
There are restaurants you try once and remember fondly. And then there are the ones you work your way through, dish by dish, until you’ve had nearly everything on the menu. Caprice Bistro falls firmly in the second category. This cozy French bistro — owned by a lovely French couple — has a romantic ambiance and a menu that rewards the curious and the loyal in equal measure.
On this particular evening, my date and I sat at the bar upstairs, where a good friend happened to be working. A good start.
The Cheese Plate (A Delicious Act of Sacrilege)
The French eat cheese after dinner. This is not a suggestion — it’s a cultural institution, and Caprice will remind you of it when you get to the dessert menu and find the cheese plate listed there too. That said, the owners are gracious enough to include it on the starters list as well, which is either an act of culinary diplomacy or a quiet acknowledgment that Americans are going to do what they want.
We did what we wanted.
The plate arrived with Port Salut, Manchego (the mildest of the bunch and my least favorite), Chèvre (a goat cheese and my clear favorite), Saint Angel (a close second), and Fourme d’Ambert, a blue cheese. Yes, blue cheese is technically moldy cheese. But if it tastes this good and isn’t going to hurt you, the philosophy question answers itself.
The Starters
The cocktail of the evening was a Jolie Pêche — peachy, lightly sweet, and exactly right for the mood.
The Salade Méli-Mélo was a spring mix with freshly sliced Parmesan and roasted cherry tomatoes, lightly dressed in a verjus vinaigrette. The roasted tomatoes were the move here — unexpected, and they elevated what could have been a straightforward salad into something more interesting.
From the specials, I ordered the Gazpacho. Gazpacho is served cold, which surprises people who haven’t had it, and this version was deeply flavorful and genuinely refreshing. This is not your momma’s tomato soup. The tomatoes were crushed rather than blended, giving it texture, and there was a familiar flavor underneath everything that I couldn’t quite place — something I expect to think about longer than I should.
The Entrées
My date went with the Lamb Shank “Tagine” — the menu’s most ordered dish, and for good reason. A quick note on the quotation marks: tagine refers both to a Moroccan slow-cooking vessel (a clay dish with a conical lid that bastes the food as it cooks) and to the style of cooking it produces. The quotes on the menu suggest Caprice isn’t using the traditional clay pot, but the flavors are unmistakably tagine — warm spices, deep braised richness, North African through and through. That cultural thread actually makes sense here: Morocco was a French protectorate until 1956, and that kind of culinary exchange tends to leave a lasting mark. Whatever the vessel, the result was excellent.
I ordered the Mahi with Shrimp Provençal from the specials. The warm-water fish sat on a bed of rice, cooked properly — not overdone, which with mahi is the difference between a good dish and a forgettable one. The Provençal sauce was extraordinary. Rich, layered, and deeply flavorful, it transformed what might have been a straightforward fish dish into something memorable. This became my new favorite at Caprice that evening, which is saying something given how well I know the menu.
The Dessert
Caprice’s macarons arrive differently than you might expect. Traditionally, the airy cookies are sandwiched together with a creamy filling. Here, the cream is spread across the plate and the cookies stand upright in a row — more architectural than conventional, and better for it. Alongside them: a dollop of chocolate mousse.
The mousse is not decoration. Spread it on the cookies. Eating the two together is noticeably better than eating them separately, and if you leave that mousse untouched you will regret it.
The Verdict
Caprice Bistro is the kind of place that earns its reputation over many visits rather than one. The French couple who runs it has created something genuinely warm and personal — a restaurant that feels like a local secret even when it’s full. If you’re in Wilmington and you haven’t been, go. If you have been, you already know.
The Menu
Caprice Bistro — Wilmington, NC Cuisine: French Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
