It was like stepping into a French poster--the dimmed light cast by the white globes hanging from the ceiling, the ornate floor tiles, the long bar framed in dark wood, and red velvet cushions on banquettes. I savored warm crusty bread as I watched servers scurry about, wearing white tablecloth aprons tied in knobby knots on their derrieres. I knew I was in a serious bistro.

"Chef cooks down the onions about eight hours," my server bragged, referring to the onion soup. His pride in "Chef" was palpable as he described the other nine appetizers in such mouth-watering detail. I ordered three of them. I pierced the cap of bread and cheese covering my soup tureen, spooning out the dark hearty broth, finally reaching the reward of long-cooked onions, a sweet mound of onion jam. My lightly fried eggplant Napoleon was a tower of flavor, drawing on roasted plum tomatoes, olive-oil-scented goat cheese, the crunch of pine nuts and a topknot of black olive tapenade. My third selection, chunks of lobster tossed in a celeriac remoulade atop toasted brioche, was pleasingly fresh, but its subtlety suffered in the company of the others.  

Friends joined me on a subsequent visit to explore further this winning cavalcade of starters, which also appears on the lunch menu. The prettiest was the Bibb lettuce salad, its leaves layered like petals of a flower, forming airy crevices as a catchall for the tarragon vinaigrette and crumbles of Roquefort. My warm crepe on mixed greens transformed mere salad to a cornucopia of minced ham, earthy mushrooms and molten cheese. The Bistro's duck confit, the epitome of bistro fare, is not for sissies. Chef Ian Campbell nudges the gaminess of the crisped duck leg (paired with tiny beluga lentils), with a salty boost from bacon lardons, creating a fulsome flavor, greater than the sum of its parts. 

Seasonal entrees also piqued our culinary yearnings. The Catalan stew was delightfully light, combining large grilled shrimp, nicoise potatoes, and bits of tomato and olives in a fragrant broth. Roasted leg of lamb was simply that: thin slices of rare meat and flageolet beans atop lamb au jus. Our favorite, though, was the braised rabbit--moist and fork tender--accompanied by a sinful Gruyere-leek bread pudding and small green picholine olives, which our server sagely noted as being "meatier than other olives." 

Chef Campbell, a Cambridge native, trained at the Culinary Institute of America. Pursuing "externships" at the popular Charleston restaurant in Baltimore and the famed Bouchon in Napa, he was exposed to the entire spectrum of French cuisine, from bistro to haute. By the time he returned home to open his own restaurant, he knew his passions lay with "the simple unpretentious cuisine of the bistro."  

"Pairing the picholine olive with rabbit is absolutely important," Campbell told me, adding that picholines, rabbit and leeks is a classic French Easter dish. "For generations the French have served certain ingredients, like the right olive with rabbit, because they marry beautifully. We like to innovate, but we're not going to mess with that." 

Nor does pastry chef Emily Salisbury "mess" with traditional desserts. She's a master of creme brulee, pots de creme and crepes, and is as comfortable with chocolate. For her terrine, she overlaps thin slices of airy chocolate in a puddle of pistachio anglaise sauce, resulting in a sumptuous but light apres-dinner indulgence.  

Clearly, it's not only the knobby-knotted aprons and candlelit tables that have earned the young Bistro Poplar accolades on several Bay dining scene lists.