Fairhope’s R Bistro Pleases

If we had been smarter, we would have made our first visit to R Bistro on Scenic Hwy 98 much earlier than JUL 30 2025. Open since DEC 2023 in the spot that used to house Fish River Grill on 98, the place offers French ambience and foods in a nicely decorated setting. Our picks off of a generous sized lunch menu are Downtown Oysters ($22) for me, while Colleen goes for the Bronzed Creole Salmon Petit ($20). Despite the place being busy, we’re impressed at how promptly our orders show up. Featuring orzo, roasted red pepper, mushrooms and roasted tomato glaze, my five fried oysters are a treat, offering plenty of delicious, slightly sweet crunch. The peppers and mushrooms atop the orzo add a nice complement. After telling Colleen, “you really should try this,” my ‘never-would-I-eat-an-oyster’ wife agrees to try a small bite (I should have taken a picture of this to mark the occasion). Her reaction doesn’t take long. “If I was going to eat oysters, these are what I would eat,” she says. It’s not just my dish that impresses. Colleen loves her salmon. The fish and fresh vegetables each add their own flavor, creating a culinary adventure with every bite taken. Our cash total without tip winds up at $45.78. While it’s not the lowest price lunch we’ve ever had, it’s nowhere near the most expensive, either. Colleen and I agree that we got our money’s worth; both meals are excellent. We agree that we would get these entrees again, but therein lies a challenge. Other choices on the menu–from salads to sandwiches to Steak Frites, shrimp and grits and even a quiche with salad–seem to call out to us, as well. The only logical step to take is to make a return visit. Jennifer, our server, confesses to being a little overwhelmed; the restaurant is slammed with much more lunch business on this day than is common, she tells us. Still, she does an excellent job of seeing that we have what we need. One bit of advice if you plan on visiting R Bistro: Make sure you know how to use your phone’s flashlight. The interior lighting–done to enhance the French ambience–is so low that we see other customers using their phone’s lights to see the menu. Our preference would be to increase the lighting at least a bit, but that doesn’t deter us from our overall impression of the place on this, our first visit. We’ve had a positive experience, and we’ll come back. Open WED-SAT at 19270 Scenic Hwy 98 for lunch and dinner, R Bistro offers an alluring brunch menu Sundays from 11 ‘til 3 (the eggs benedict with soft shell crab is calling my name). Lunch and dinner menus are available at opentable-dot-com. If you’ve been saying you need to try R Bistro but haven’t gotten around to it, we say: Go for it.