Purrfect Bistro Tuna Niçoise: Kitty Agrees on the Purrrrrrrrfect!

Merrick Purrfect Bistro Tuna Nicoise

Winki the mini-kitty wasn’t having a good year. She and the new rescue hadn’t connected yet, which resulted in a lot of hissing fits between her, perched halfway up the spiral staircase to her lair in the attic, and the new boy, whining and snorting on the bottom step. She also slept less often in her favorite spot, tucked into Daddy’s armpit. Poor baby…

The two, eventually, made friends – after all, she and the “senior” dog took almost a year to come to terms. But in the meantime, she hung out upstairs with her two litter boxes, food and water bowls, and a lot of toys she routinely ignored. Twice a day, yours truly pulled a can from the ‘fridge and trudged up the stairs to add a little treat to her food bowl – an ounce or two of wet food to go along with her kitty kibbles. Winki's always had expensive tastes, though, turning up her nose at the cans found in most supermarkets: for her, it’s gotta be the “good stuff.”

With that in mind, we picked up some “good stuff” at a local store: Merrick Purrfect Bistro Tuna Niçoise. And it is undeniably the good stuff, both sliced and grain free – yep, you people who think cats are pure carnivores will be happy with this stuff (but I’d better not see any cat grass at your houses). All these years later, this is still one of her go-to wet foods.

The ingredient list starts out with deboned tuna (what a concept!) and then starts throwing in chicken (broth, liver and deboned parts) and a bunch of herbivore food like potato parts, green peas, green beans, cranberries and flax seed before the long list of added minerals and even ¾ of a Simon and Garfunkel song (sage, rosemary and thyme). No corn, rice or wheat in sight – so if you’ve diagnosed your kitty with Chron’s, it’s gluten-free.

The label says “sliced,” though I’d be more inclined to call it “diced” – lots of small chunks of meat in a thick stewlike sauce (made, I suspect, of carrageenan, guar gum, and potato starch). It’s sort of a medium brown in color, and I couldn’t spot any bits that seemed to be vegetable matter; leading me to suspect the “slices” are actually finely-ground ingredients formed into chunks instead of sliced from tuna steaks and chicken thighs.

Kitty, I suspect, doesn’t care what it looks like – she definitely cares what it tastes like, though. Though sometimes a finicky eater – she has been known to leave “chunks” of meat in her bowl and just lick off the gravy – she greedily devoured her Tuna Niçoise and fixed me with one of those stares that asks, “why can’t I have more?” Like all cat-food companies, Merrick advises one 5.5-ounce can per 6.5 pounds of body weight daily, but she gets a about 40% of a can daily (she does only weigh about 7 pounds, though).

Bottom line? Kitty likes it, the ingredients appear to be top-shelf, and it costs maybe three times as much as a can of Whiskas. It must be good… (Guaranteed analysis: minimum crude protein 9%, minimum crude fat 4%, maximum crude fiber 1.2%, maximum moisture 81%, maximum ash 2.10%, minimum taurine 0.08%) Summary  PLUS: quality ingredients without the grain fillers MINUS: pricey, doesn't look as "stew-y" as you might expect WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: Kitty's expectations were raised by Merrick Purrfect Bistro Tuna Niçoise canned food. Darn...

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