Welcome to Bistro Nautile!
(nAh-teal)
Almost nineteen years ago, Fort Collins native Mike Reeves decided to open a fresh seafood market and restaurant in Old Town Fort Collins…
A lifelong chef and self-motivated entrepreneur, Mike wanted to create a place where quality food was as important as quality people, where customers would feel welcomed, known, and satiated, and where one and all could find fish so fresh, someone might get slapped! The result was Fish. Kat Reeves was one of the original employees at Fish. She helped Mike run Fish for fifteen years, and manned the helm herself for the last three.
After more than 18 years slinging fish and nurturing one of the best restaurants on the Front Range, Kat and Mike decided it was time to make some changes, so they created a partnership with the most dynamic of all the chefs they worked with, Ryan Damasky, to forge ahead with a new restaurant concept. This concept is structured on the foundation of friendship and community that was the cornerstone of Fish, but opens the doors to much more of the NOCO population with a greatly expanded selection of menu fare. It also fulfills a need in the restaurant scene in Fort Collins, a French-inspired bistro.
This dining room offers elevated preparations using the skillful techniques and fresh food stuffs from the hands of the best chef anywhere around – Ryan Damasky. Ryan began his culinary career at the age of 15 making salads, was in culinary school at the age of 18 and then began his journey from the midlands of Chicago, Illinois to the Front Range of Colorado, working as the Executive Chef at Fish Restaurant, the Executive Sous Chef at the Stanley Hotel, and as part of the opening team for several other restaurant concepts as well, including Jax Fish House and The Kitchen. He is a focused, driven and food motivated individual, spending his days growing food on the farm, studying food and technique at the library, and creating incredible food at any restaurant lucky enough to employ him. Ryan is both a “Seed to Table” and “Scale to Tail” chef, creating more than a Farm to Table restaurant and idealizing the importance of zero waste kitchen preparations.
We agreed early on that Bistro Nautile’s focus would be French inspired cuisine mainly, but that no hard lines would be drawn. The French were the first (as early as the 1500s) population in Western culture to encode the importance of freshness and care into their recipes instead of the medieval method of simply dumping gobs of spices on some shady piece of meat and roasting it forever. Over the next few hundred years, the French continued to increase their focus until what is recognized world-wide today as one of the finest culinary traditions was formed. As a concept, we prefer to begin in a space of ideal ideas and to hopefully not screw it up too much from there. Our focus is on truly farm-fresh ingredients - Chef Ryan partners with a variety of local vendors to provide the freshest seafood possible, Colorado Certified Angus Beef and poultry and local eggs, greens and vegetables, meticulously prepared and presented in a comfortable atmosphere by servers who are competent, friendly and just a little weird.
After much hard work and collaboration, we offer to you Bistro Nautile, where we will count you as a friend, as part of our family, and expect that by the end of your time with us, you will have the same affection for our craft that we do.
À bientôt!
Kat, Mike, Ryan and the Crew