In an interview at the restaurant at 2600 Far Hills Ave., chef-owner Dominique Fortin said slow business prompted his decision. The closure affected about 20 employees.
Fortin said the overall decline of full-service fine dining in the Dayton area and across the country hurt his restaurant, as did the inaccurate impression among many Dayton-area residents that Dominique’s — which was called “C’est Tout a Bistro” for its first 11 years — was a fancy, expensive French restaurant. Although a classically trained French chef himself, Fortin served Provence-style bistro dishes in a casual atmosphere in the Oakwood restaurant.
Fortin grew up in Chartres, France, and worked in restaurants in Paris, London, New York City and Chicago. He came to Dayton in 1999 to succeed l’Auberge co-founder Dieter Krug as executive chef of the now-defunct, former Mobil four-star restaurant l’Auberge, which was also located on Far Hills Avenue, several blocks south of Fortin’s restaurant. Fortin left l’Auberge to launch C’est Tout in 2003.
Shanon Morgan, president of the Miami Valley Restaurant Association, said Monday that she has “noticed somewhat of a trend away from fine dining restaurants and more toward casual dining.” The trend is price-driven, Morgan said.
But many independent fine dining restaurants have noticed this trend as well, and they have responded by offering small-plate options and other more affordable specials, Morgan said.
While the Dayton area still boasts several independently owned full-service restaurants, some highly credentialed restaurants have closed in southwest Ohio, including l’Auberge in 2012 and the Maisonette in Cincinnati in 2005. The Maisonette had carried the top five-star rating from the Mobil Travel Guide for more than four decades.
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