If it weren't for Cathal Armstrong, owner and chef of Alexandria's Restaurant Eve, Christophe and Michelle Poteaux might not have opened their own restaurant, Bastille, in the same neighborhood.

It was early 2006 and the couple were deep into Armstrong's Tasting Room menu and discussing launching out on their own when Armstrong, hot from the kitchen, plonked himself down at their table. "He said, Okay, you have to open in Alexandria, I need more people and a new restaurant will bring people down," Michelle reports. "The next day," says Christophe, "he emailed us his realtor guy."

The couple looked at dozens of sites in the area before they got to the space they now occupy on North Royal Street. "It was our last option." And pretty run down, too. But the price suited their limited funds. With a budget of some $20,000 they put together out of their savings with a little help from the bank and the previous owner of the restaurant, they worked through August 2006 to get the dining room and kitchen up and running. They did the painting. They bought equipment on eBay.

"We knew we didn't want to be a total fine dining white tablecloth restaurant," says Christophe. "We couldn't afford it. You don't need to have white tablecloths to have great food. You can still do it, with simplicity but with elegance. You highlight ingredients." So they put up with the tableware of the original owner. The Salvation Army, says Michelle wryly, had been his favorite shopping center for cutlery, glasses and plates.

Little by little they've replaced the original furniture and fixtures. Their second goal was to focus strongly on wine. "We were both very much into wine," says Paris-born Christophe. "There is so much in wine to expose people to." Michelle is primarily responsible for the list and she's bought in some labels with clout that may not be so familiar to a US audience. The choice is wide. "The predominant market is American. They have palettes for wine but some are refined and some are simple. I have wines that run from anyone-can-drink-it to much more complex, fine wines that will give you the full spectrum of the grape. You have people who aren't knowledgeable but are willing to try within their comfort level."

Some clients in the beginning were not convinced a woman would know what she was talking about, says Christophe. Now that they understand she knows what she's doing they're willing to take her suggestions. "Though if they ask me for a white zinfandel," Michelle says with a grim grin, "I'll still tell them, No."

From Springfield, Missouri, Michelle grew up with the boiled peach dumplings and cooking of a great grandmother whose favorite ingredient was bacon fat. She took herself off to Sullivan University in Louisiana where she landed her first real cooking job at The Bakery in town. Pastry was her great love, though at Bastille she cooks across the menu alongside her husband, so you'll find pastry-influenced dishes like a Pannacotta made with Bleu des Causses cheese on the Starter menu. "Pastry I prefer and pastry likes me. I grew up with my great grandmother and mother always baking and cooking around me. I had a preference for what they baked. You're a kid - it's sugar!" In 2008, she was nominated in the RAMMYs (Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington awards) for top Pastry Chef. Stints at Juliann's Bakery in San Joe, the Icon Supper Club in Palo Alto and The Palace in Sunnyvale led to work at Amphora Bakery in Falls Church. She met Christophe at her next stop, Aquarelle in The Watergate.

The son of Parisian restaurant owners, he'd arrived there from work with high end chefs such as Alain Ducasse and Daniel Boulud in New York. He hadn't started out in cooking. His parents, part of an extended family in the industry for generations, had advised him against it and he took himself off to get a Master's Degree in Finance. But he wasn't committed to it in the way he was to food. So he told his family he was off to the US to polish up the knowledge and technique he had imbibed by osmosis and experience in the various restaurants he'd worked in growing up, and headed to the French Culinary Institute in New York. They weren't surprised, he said. You didn't look like you were enjoying what you were doing, they told him. Off he went with their blessing, to follow a culinary route that led eventually to Aquarelle.

Aquarelle had brought both partners the beginning of name recognition. At the end of 2005 with Aquarelle about to close, they were looking to capitalize upon it by opening their own place. Now they work every day but Sunday, cooking lunch and dinner. Dishes, made with the finest locally sourced ingredients, run the gamut of classic bistro food, from Bouillabaisse to Coq au Vin, and Moullard Duck Breast with Confit leg, fig reductionand cassoulet of cannellini beans.

"We don't have too much time for personal," says Michelle.  If they do find time to take off, they head to Pennsylvania for a day's skiing at Whitetail. If there's more free time, they'll make for the slopes of Killington or Vail. But the reality, as Michelle points out, is the same for them as it is for most chefs: "Our personal life is here."

Bastille is located at 1201 N. Royal St, Alexandria, 703 519 3776; www.bastillerestaurant.com.

As well as an A La Carte menu, Bastille offers a 3-course prix fixe menu for lunch at $21 and at dinner at $35.

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