LA REGALADE CONSERVATOIRE - Another Superb Performance from Chef Bruno Doucet, B+; L'AFFRIOLE - In Top Form After All of These Years, B

  Ever since he took over the original La Régalade in the 14th arrondissement from founding chef Yves Camdeborde in 2004, Bruno Doucet has continued to delight bistro-loving Parisians with his shrewd and technically impeccable modern French bistro cooking. First he rebooted the menu at La Regalade, making it brighter and more modern than what Camdeborde had originally been doing, and then he opened a branch, La Régalade Saint-Honoré, in the 1st arrondissement.

  For anyone who hated trekking to the outer reaches of the 14th arrondissement--and most people did, this second address was a real blessing, not only for its convenient location, but also because the contemporary bistro cooking served here is so outstanding. Now Doucet's launched a third address, La Régalade Conservatoire in the gorgeous new Hotel de Nell, which opened two weeks ago and has already become one of the hottest boutique hotels in Paris. 

  Arriving with Bruno, Tina and Francois on a wintry night, we had a drink in the bar with a glass room behind reception, and enjoyed the gorgeous hand-made oak furniture that is a major component of the interior design that brilliant designer Jean-Michel Wilmotte did for the hotel. Here, Wilmotte, black-and-white checkerboard floor, solid oak chairs, and tables with beige runners create an atmosphere that's profoundly Parisian, but modern by teasing the usual nostalgia this term so often implies when used in a decorative context with strong graphics and a rigorous Zen design aesthetic. This is the second restaurant I've recently dined in by Mr. Wilmotte--the last one was Yannick Alleno's Terroir Parisien, and I have to say that he's become one of the best restaurant designers working in Paris today.

   Doucet's menu for this handsome dining room rolled out some terrific new dishes I'd never seen before, too. What I really wanted was the creamy cauliflower, Stilton and bacon soup that Tina had, but since I'm still flogging some of the caloric discipline I learned during a week of low-calorie thalassotherapy in Brittany, i went with the marinated scallops with Granny Smith apples and aged Comte in a fine cubed hash adding texture and a gently acidic bite to the creamy scallops under a thatch of frisee dressed in chive oil. I also loved the quiet daring of pairing cheese with scallops, since according to conventional Gallic kitchen wisdom the only dairy produce appropriate for this shellfish is cream. Instead, the comte deliciously enunciated the natural creaminess (sic) of the scallops.

   After our main courses, a few sticking points registered. When the delightful hotel manager excused himself and went home, service fell off a cliff in the dining room, with the waiters clustering behind the bar like a bunch of crows and almost pointedly ignoring their customers, and this was after they'd failed to present the complimentary terrine that's one of the signatures of a La Regalade meal without being prompted. The bread was also dull, and lighting in this dining room needs to be tweaked, since the built-in ceiling spots cast small short hard beams of light instead of illuminating the room gently and thoroughly. And as good as the food is and as attractive as Wilmotte's dining room may be, this place has very little atmosphere. All of these flaws will doubtless be remedied as the restaurant settles in, however.

  Our main courses were excellent. Francois tucked into a big juicy steak sliced and presented on a mound of stewed beef cheeks and carrots in a red-wine enriched jus; Bruno and loved our griddled half-salted cod with a pistachio crust on a bed of winter vgetables and shellfish (mussels and cockles) in a delicate shellfish bouillon, and Tina wolfed down a grilled breast of veal with winter vegetables.

  Rice pudding with caramel sauce, a classic La Regalade dessert, and pomelo-and-pineapple fruit salad with excellent ginger sorbet concluded this very good meal, which had a particularly festive air for me and Bruno, since this new branch of La Regalade is a very easy walk from our front door.

 

  The following night, after we'd both had non-stop days during which neither of us had time to shop, we decided to meet for dinner somewhere midway between Bruno's office and our apartment. I asked Bruno if he had any ideas. "That's your job," he said. Oh, okay. Well, I left it until the last minute, and then was trying to think of someplace relaxed, pleasant and reasonable on the Left Bank, no small order, when it occurred to me that it had been years since we'd been to L'Affriole, a long-running and very good bistro in the 7th run by chef Thierry Verola, who'd worked with Alain Senderens a longtime ago. So I booked us there, and our first surprise was that the warm honey-and-ochre vaguely provencale dining room of yore had vanished in favor of a good-looking and much hipper decor that referenced various Fifties French classics--the green chairs have the shape and design of those found in public parks like the Jardins du Luxembourg or French classrooms, and the tile walls and factory-style suspension lamps also had an appealing retro look.

   

  The chalkboard menu offered all sorts of appealing choices that night, but both of us started off with the butternut veloute, which was rich and pleasantly garnished with Savoy cabbage, and then Bruno had sea bass with a red wine sauce and winter vegetables en cocotte, and I continued on my cod bender with a perfectly cooked filet in a creamy soubise sauce. Our desserts were excellent as well--ile flottante with creme anglaise for Bruno and apple-and-raisin compote for me. All told, with its warm friendly service and reasonably priced wines, L'Affriole is a very good neighborhood bistro that well deserves its swarming crowd of regulars.

L'Affriolé, 17 Rue Malar, 7th, Lte. 01-44-18-31-33. Metro: Pont de l'Alma Closed Sunday and Monday. Lunch prix-fixe two-courses 26 Euros, three-courses 30 Euros; Dinner prix-fixe 36 Euros.

La Régalade Conservatoire, Hôtel de Nell,  7-9 rue du Conservatoire, 9th, Tel. 01-44-83-83-60. Metro: Bonne Nouvelle. Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday. Prix-fixe 35 Euros.

LE BISTRO URBAIN--Urban and Urbane in the Old Table-Top District, B

   In the three cities I’ve lived in longest, know best, and have minutely observed during the course of my adult life—New York, London and Paris, I’ve always been fascinated by the way a single restaurant can serve as the catalyst for major urban change. The archetype that immediately comes to mind for me is Ruskays, a long gone restaurant on the Upper West Side of New York City, while the most vivid recent example is Le Bistro Urbain in Paris’s 10th arrondissement. 

 

   At a time in the late seventies when Manhattan north of Lincoln Center seemed increasingly on the skids from Broadway east to Central Park, Ruskays, a candle-lit duplex space with a big picture window façade, offered a vision of a dramatically different Columbus Avenue—in this take, it would be—like the restaurant, fashionable and popular with creative young urbanites. I ate at Ruskays dozens of times but have zero memory of the food—instead, what intrigued me and made me go back was the idea of identifying with and becoming part of the simmering urban glamour in the room.  Also in New York, Raoul’s in Soho did the same thing—although here the food was actually good, while the original Square Trousseau in Paris offered a perfect snap shot of the young chic of the Bastille and the Faubourg Saint Antoine when this turf began its long evolution from being a neighborhood of working-class artisans to Bobo central. Sudden constellations of popular new restaurants have also signaled major changes in London’s Soho and Notting Hill Gate, both quarters being so stylish today that it’s almost impossible to imagine that the former had once been the city’s massage-parlor filled red-light district and the other a rough-and-tumble area with a large population of inhabitants from the Caribbean islands.

     

  Within recent years, the long-standing tradition of urban life in western cities which held that these three cities would be home to a diverse array of different socio-economic groups has been pummeled by huge changes in the global economy. The upshot of these disruptions and dislocations is that the world’s wealthy once again covet the beauty, character and convenience of the historic hearts of these cities, with the result that lower-income people are pushed out to the less-expensive periphery of ever-spreading metropolitan areas.

     

  What this means is full-gallop gentrification in these places, and in this context, a single restaurant can have a huge impact on the popular perception of a neighborhood—Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster, for example, being absolutely vital in the accelerating sociological transformation of Harlem. 

   

  In central Paris, the 10th arrondissement has been emerging as a dramatically more up-market neighborhood along the Canal du Saint Martin for at least a decade, but now this is spilling over into the formerly grotty triangle of turf bounded by the Boulevard Magenta, les grands boulevards and the rue du Faubourg Poissoniere that was once the showroom hub of the French table-top industry, and it’s been intriguing to watch the area become hip, a transformation led by a clutch of trendy new restaurants, bar, cafes and wine bars. Many of them, including L’Office, Vivant Table and Abri, have become destination tables in terms of attracting people from outside of the 10th. 

   

   This is why even though I love all three of these tables, I have developed a new gastronomic soft spot for Le Bistro Urbain, which holds up the same hopeful (and perhaps parlous--look what Columbus Avenue eventually became) mirror to the 10th that Ruskays did to the Upper West Side so many years ago. And the similarities between these tables don’t stop there—both share the same sort of effortless and unselfconscious low-key urban chic and take their primary vocation—making sure the locals eat well and have a good time, very seriously.

   

   Coming here with Bruno and our friends Laurent and Carole for a late and impromptu dinner the other night, all of us liked this place the moment we came through the door. Why? There was a nice friendly welcome from the proprietor, the room was well-lit and visually interesting, with an open kitchen that might have inspired Edward Hopper and an interesting wall installation of overlapping white rectangle, and the tables were correctly spaced.  

   Then the good-value chalkboard menu proposed a lot of dishes that were a perfect bull's eye in terms of the type of meal we were gunning for--exalted French comfort food. So three of us had the marinated salmon with an excellent remoulade sauce and a trio of freshly baked miniature rolls, and the third tucked into an excellent warm salad of deboned rabbit with rosemary on salad leaves. Though I had not gone to dinner with my professional food writer's cap on, I couldn't help but noticing that the food was really well sourced, and eventually asked one of the owners if he worked with Terroirs d'Avenir, the ur trendy and excellent super well-sourced provisioner to many of Paris's best young chefs.

   Like the magician who's afraid that the audience might be on to how he pulled the rabbit out of his hat, he was initially startled by the question, but then answered with a nod and a grin while he scrutinized our table for a clue as to why we might know of this wonderful little company, a cook's secret. Our main courses, by chef William Ransonne, ex-Les Parisiennes, were very good, too.   

Partridge

Onglet

Bruno and Laurent went wild--with partridge and wild dove respectively, for a reasonable supplement to the prix-fixe menu, Carole was happy with her maigre, and I scarfed down a juicy onglet (hanger steak) served with baby potatoes and a creamy sauce of mustard, cream and deglazed meat juices. 

  Desserts were excellent, too--petit pot de crème à la chicorée (chicory flavored custard) and ravioles aux coings sauvages (dessert ravioli stuffed with wild quince), and by the end of our meal, we were in really good spirits. "This was a really good meal," exulted Laurent, adding, "The food was great, but it's also really wonderful see the renewal of the neighborhood bistro by a new generation of talented chefs and restaurateurs." 

  It is indeed.

103 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, 10th, Tel. 01-42-46-32-49, Metro:  Gare de l'Est, Poissonnière & Château d'Eau, www.bistro-urbain.fr  Open Monday-Saturday for lunch and dinner, closed Sunday. Lunch menus 14.50-19 €, dinner menu 25-30 €.

L'INSTANT D'OR--Despite the Cringe-Inducing Name, Excellent Contemporary French Cooking, B+

   

  I recently had a good chuckle over what was surely one of the crankiest restaurant reviews I think I've ever read. Ten minutes late for his reservation, a certain French critic had received a call from the restaurant he was on his way to review to inform him that his table would be given away if he didn't show up swiftly. Suffice it say, this put him into a furiously foul frame of mind, which meant that he shook the offending restaurant soundly by the shoulders before kicking it in the shins. The reason I mention this is because so many different factors affect the way we perceive of and subsequently like or dislike a restaurant.

  

    So I'll confess that I was in a grouchy mood on my way to meet a friend who was staying across the street at the Four Seasons George V hotel for dinner at the new L'Instant d'Or. It'd been a very busy day, and my appetite wasn't really in the market for 'important' food--I'd have been very happy with a plate of gyoza or some oysters. It also happens that I don't generally like the 8th arrondissement of my adopted city; it's a bit too flashy for me. I rather dreaded the certain unctuous service style I expected here as well, since for me, social posing is a terrible appetite killer. I was, however, looking forward to seeing my friend, a distinguished doctor and my oldest female friend in the world--we went to Kindergarten together. She had asked me to book somewhere "good, special, new and within a very short walk of my hotel."

 

  Within minutes of arriving, though, I was so engrossed by Laura's decision to close her pediatric practice in a suburb of Boston and move to Myanmar to work for a charity there, that I barely even noticed the slightly icy maitre d'hotel. In fact, I didn't really become much aware of the moment, golden or otherwise, until our first courses arrived.

My langoustines with chestnut shavings and girolles on a sublime pumpkin royale (custard) in a Parmesan 'cappucino' were shockingly good--they were cooked nacreous and the pumpkin and chestnut teased their sweetness without being coy. Laura's ravioli filled with duxelles and topped with ribbons of lardo di Colonnata was a similarly suave, sophisticated rendering of rusticity, too--more Breughel than Vermeer, if you'll allow me the fun of a pretentious art-historical reference. 

    

   Though I'd been aware of L'Instant d'Or's chef, Frédéric Duca, who had been formed by two notably tempestuous cooks--Gerard Passedat and Michel del Burgo, and who had most recently been sous-chef at Helene Darroze, this was, of course, the first time I'd sampled his cooking, and I was somehow surprised by its equilibirum. In the kitchen, Duca pulls off an elegant harmony by being sinewy and assertive at the same time that he's reflexively understated and impressively refined. "This is lovely food," observed Laura, "And thanks for trekking across town to meet me." "Well of course I'd come across town to see you, especially after you'd just crossed an ocean." Then Laura's Blackberry, a hateful object if ever there was one, started buzzing on the table like an electronic moth, and she glanced at it. "I'm sorry, I really have to take this. I'll go outside, but remember, Alec, all forms of beauty are needed to prop up civilization."

 

  In her absence, I wondered at the source of the gentle veil of melancholia that had settled over me, and tried not to listen to the loud and entitled quartet at the table next to me debate the merits of Bali or Miami Beach for their month-long August holiday. It must have been the reference to Florida that brought on the next skein of thoughts, but I was surprised to find myself musing on a walk I'd taken on longtime ago on a hard flat Florida beach with my late father. I'd come down from a working trip to New York to spend a week with him for his 70th birthday. It was my treat, and he chose Amelia Island near Jacksonville. It was curious shading to quite odd for the two of us to be alone together after so many years--we were normally bracketed by some quorum of our family of six, so I was gnattering on a bit about the job I'd just been offered to me as European Correspondent for GOURMET Magazine. Then Dad glanced sideways at me and said, 'When did you suddenly go and get so interested in food of all things?"

  

  

   

 
  "So sorry," said Laura, returning just seconds before we were served our main courses. Without noticing, I managed to construct an almost all-crustacean meal, since I had roasted lobster on freshly made squid's ink linguine with a delicious lemon foam. Here, too, I was impressed by the humbleness of Duka's technical skills--he's a remarkably good cook but he doesn't show off. Instead, he let's his produce star. Laura's scallops were superb, too--griddled to give them browned edges and topped with delicate hazelnut waters they were accompanied by a few fine pieces of jamon and a warm salad of Jerusalem artichokes in a hazelnut oil froth. She laughed out loud after she tasted them.

   

  "Since you live here, you probably forget how remarkable French cooking really is. I mean we have some great places in Boston now, too, but at its best there's still something so uniquely regal and deliciously superior about great French food." Her scallops were good, and in the back of my mind, I was working out that even though it's far from being cheap, L'Instant d'Or is actually a very good buy. Why? You're getting intelligently original smodern French haute cuisine for half the price of what you'd spend elsewhere in the neighborhood, and the tongue-in-cheek art-gallery decors of the three very differently decorated dining room proposed very different settings as well. To wit, you can hide away in the back rooms or show off by sitting up front (not sure why the maitre d'hotel decided that Laura in ancient Laura Ashley and me in the same brown L.L. Bean corduroy trousers I've been wearing all winter were appropriate for the vitrine dining room but whatever).

  

 

   

  Very talented Japanese pastry chef Kiriko Nakamura provided a festive and very beautiful finale to our evening, too. Her mandarin-orange themed dessert wore a jaunty citrus fascinator, road a beautifully made pillow of sponge and was accompanied by a neat slush of tart citrus ice. This was a bull's eye adult dessert for the hedonistic calorie counter, and it was perfect at the end of my crustacean feast. Laura was quite happy with her tropical fruit themed dessert, which also sported a fascinator, this one burnt sugar.

   

  As the meal had quietly swollen to be rather momentous is so many ways, we dawdled over espresso (me) and a chamomile tea (Laura) and startled each other by making small talk. This persiflage made all of the elephants in the room restless, however, so I walked her across the street to her hotel to say good-bye. 

   

  Emotionally espaliered as children both of us, we've long ago mastered the hasty hug and mumbled farewell, but instead we shared a rib-crunching embrace. "Thank you for this great send off. It would never have been so moving or memorable without such good food, Alec," said Laura. I wished her well and told her I'd always be there if she needed me. Then when I turned around to walk away, she snatched the back of my jacket. "I'm so proud of you," she said. 

 

  In the morning, the first two thoughts that I had after turning of the alarm were that they're very few people who'd have had the affectionate tenacity to seek me out in the middle of my maze, and also that L'Instant d'Or is a very, very good restaurant indeed. Seriously.

  

    36 avenue Georges V, 8th, Tel. 01-47-23-46-78. Metro: Alma Marceau or George V.

Menus: 49 Euros (lunch), 98 Euros (dinner), a la carte 150 Euros

L'INTENTION--Decent if Timid Intentions in the Marais, B-

 

  Though the ambient consumer culture in most Western countries presents aging as akin to a slowly developing case of the plague, I enjoy the annual privilege of notching another year on my belt. I'm much happier today than I was when I was twenty-one, and I've also lived long enough to see the outlines of an interesting and rewarding life emerging out of the ether of youth. In fact one of the more amusing things as time goes by is a deepening understanding that the to-twenty-something-year-old ears tiresome bromide that 'all experience is somehow useful' actually turns out to be true.

  On those painfully always too early-to-work mornings, because they followed too-bibulous-and-too-late-to-bed evening after evening, when I was grinding cabbage after cabbage to make enough coleslaw to feed a hundred hotel guests at noon--one summer I worked as a salad chef in a hotel kitchen on Fire Island of all places, I never dreamt that this tedium would yield valuable experience. In the space of a few hours, I had to make grated-carrot-in-gelatin salad (the crowd at this hotel preferred orange or cherry Jello, just for the record), macaroni salad, tomato salad, tuna salad, rice salad, three-bean salad, and others, and I went through big institutional jar after jar of Sweet Life brand mayonnaise, bottles of lemon juice and frighteningly cheap olive oil, and, I'm afraid to admit, my hygiene as I hastily executed these chores was, well, let's say it was casual to put it politely. Fortunately, I never poisoned anyone to the best of my knowledge, and during other similar college summers, I also worked variously as a bus boy, a waiter, and a line cook, and I was just awful at all of these jobs. What these long ago activities left me with, however, was a real hands-on knowledge of how restaurant kitchens and dining rooms really work and a profound respect for all players in the restaurant business. 

  What brought all of this to mind the other night was when I showed up at L'Intention, a new bistro in the Marais that opened last July, and the very polite but slightly harried young man in the dining room sheepishly told me that he'd be doing everything himself that night, i.e. all of the cooking and also waiting table, because his waitress was out sick. I assured him that I was sure everything would be just fine, and my friend Greta and I would be understanding. Since there were only three tables of two in the dining room, I was pretty sure he'd be okay, too, but when Greta showed up, I told her we should order right away so that our orders could be staggered between those of the table that was already occupied when I arrived, and those who were seated a few minutes after she sat down.

  The simple little dining room with exposed stone walls, modern art on the walls, modern lighting fixtures and dark wooden tables had the same winsomely sincere aura as the short menu did, too. The three starters--mache salad with hazelnuts and a beet-and-tarragon vinaigrette, parsnip soup garnished with boned confit de canard, and leeks with a poached organic egg, salad and a creamy mustard vinaigrette all appealed and were all offered in PT or GT--half or full portions, a nice touch, as was a risotto with pumpkin and Parmesan cream. 

  There were three main courses, too: poached roasted guinea hen with smoked bacon, creamed cabbage and chestnuts; daube de boeuf with baked polenta; and salmon slow cooked with winter fruits (quince, apples and pears) and vegetables (carrots, parsnips and turnips) in a casserole. Well, we both ended up ordering a half portion of the leeks and the daube de boeuf, because that's what we both wanted. To be honest, I tried to cajole Greta into the risotto and the salmon, but she wasn't budging.

  The leeks were pleasant--neatly trimmed and tender and the accompanying egg perfectly poached. I'd have liked the vinaigrette to be more authoritative, though, and this dish very much needed more salt and pepper. The daube de boeuf was not quite what I was expecting either, since it came as a decidedly cartilagenous single slice of tender beef in a curiously sweet red wine sauce with nice little Nicois olives and a wedge of slightly dry oven-baked polenta. If it was a nicely made dish, the sauce lacked the ruddy depth of a really superb daube like the one chef Dominique Le Stanc serves at La Merenda in Nice, and I'd have preferred the polenta to be creamy and rich with Parmesan as opposed to solid.

  I've thought a lot about these two dishes during the last twenty-four hours, since I make a sometimes agonizing effort to be fair to a chef as sincere and competent as Cédric Barbarat, who previously cooked at La Cour Jardin restaurant at the Hotel Plaza Athénée and most recently at Sofitel Pullman de Versailles. As I learned many years ago, working in a kitchen is seriously hard work, so working in a kitchen and simultaneously running a dining room is a real high-wire act. So under the circumstances, this was an agreable meal that was served with charm and generosity, but I'd like Barbarat to channel his lustier instincts in the kitchen, where I think he's currently too timid, and then this nice little bistro will likely see me again. Oh, and he should also take the cheeses he's planning to serve of any given service out of the fridge earlier, and refuse delivery of a cheese that was as many miles from being ripe as the camembert that was served with the Saint Maure and compte that comprised the cheese course we split as we finished up an excellent bottle of Le Petit Canon de Lariveau, a canon-fronsac by winemaker Nicolas Dabudyk that's a terrific food wine and a great buy at 22 Euros a bottle. Overall, though, Barbarat's intentions are good and mine are too.

L'Intention, 3, rue du Roi-Doré, 3rd, Tel. 01-42-74-31-22. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Average 40 Euros.

LES AFFRANCHIS--A Charming Neighborhood Bistro, B

  After lavish good eating over the Christmas weekend, my appetite entered this week on tender, timid paws, and were it not for the pleasure of a jolly night out with Johanne, George, Joe and David or a tete a tete with my delightful friend Dorie, I'd certainly have been tempted to maintain a slightly monastic regime, which in my book runs to soup and salad with decorous portions of fish, chicken and pasta. I'd been hearing good things about Les Affranchis, a new bistro in the 9th not far from my front door, however, and since it was also one of the rare recently opened tables that hadn't shut down for the week between two holidays, I booked there the other night for dinner with Dorie. 

  Arriving, I liked this place immediately, since the service was notably friendly and attentive, the room was nicely lit, and as I took the place in, I noticed that it had been decorated by someone with a remarkably good eye, a sense of humor and a good searcher's sleight of hand at the local fleamarkets. An old-fashioned gramophone occupied one corner of the service bar, and there were wryly amusing posters and old advertisements framed on the walls. The Paris they riff on is mostly the city during the fifties and sixties, which creates a soothing atmosphere of a rather amorphous nostalgia, right down to the fact that the young waiter--less schooled than I am in the possibly perceived slights of sexism, eagerly exlained the animated image of the little red go-go dancer on the restaurant's website as evoking the days when Pigalle was still unabashedly naughty.

  Dorie and I sipped a good Pouilly Fume at a very fair 7 Euros a glass and dithered a bit while studying the brief chalkboard menu, because it was so appealing.

 

   Dorie decided to the have the 'Cesar' salad with Parmesan shavings to start, while I eagerly renounced the feint at healthy eating I'd been feigning and went with the terrine de campagne. Both dishes were excellent. Dorie's salad came in a rather awkward deep tear-shaped white porcelain bowl, and the perfectly coddled egg and uber Ducassian neatly trimmed lettuce betrayed the fact that young chef Pierre Petit had passed through the kitchen at Rech, part of the Ducasse stable, as well as working at the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz, the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, Ledoyen and the wonderful Le Beurre Noisette, among other addresses, all within the space of twelve years. This dish was as winsome as an Easter morning, though, with one of the only Caesar sauces I've ever tasted in France that came anywhere near the real McCoy, and my terrine was earthy and almost seething with flavor, with a perfect coarse texture, and a slab of toasted country bread and a little ramekin of cornichons. 

  So we were off to a very good start, and the phantom thought in the back of my mind as I enjoyed Dorie's always charming and incisive conversation, was that the renewel of the neighborhood bistro in Paris has now reached a rather glorious full gallop. To be sure, you're not likely to find a rock-of-ages coq au vin or blanquette de veau at a place like Les Affranchis, or the superb Le Pantruche nearby--another of my neighborhood favorites, but instead, bright, light, reasonably priced and intelligently inventive contemporary French cooking. The alarming heaving and creaking of the global economy notwithstanding, 2011 has been a brilliant year for good eating in Paris. It's also been a terrific year for anyone who loves good wine in restaurants without spending a fortune, since the white Saumur-Champigny we drank at dinner here was superb and fairly ticketed at 29 Euros.

 

  Main courses were terrific, too. I know I should eat less cod, for the simple reason that I'd like to leave some of this fine fish in the sea for the children of my nieces and nephews, but couldn't resist the roasted cod here because of its garnish of fennel bulb carbonara. Now this was an extraordinarily clever and delicious idea--the fish placed on a sort of fennel bulb compote with a Parmesan cream that was good but not assertive enough and a few lardons strewn through the vegetable. Dorie decided on fish, too, maigre, a firm white Atlantic fish from southwestern France that often goes under the unfortunate English name of croaker, and it came with diced piquillo peppers, an herbal pesto and grilled pine nuts as an expression, perhaps, of the fact that chef Pierre Petit is half Basque. As good as this fish was, however, what I liked most about it were the oven-roasted 'frites' of sweet potatoes (yams?), which I unsuccessfully attempted to recreate at noon today.

  After the main courses, things took a turn south. The cheese plate we shared wasn't very good and the rice pudding that followed wasn't adequately creamy, its candied pineapple and passionfruit topping a disappointment, too. I wasn't too surprised by this, actually, since the weakest link in the blossoming neighborhood bistro revival is invariably dessert, which seems to get sort of a cursory look-in an hour before the doors are unlocked for lunch or dinner by weary young chefs who don't have the luxury of a sous-chef to hive this part of the meal off on to.

  So would I come back? Yes, indeed--I'm already looking forward to inviting two delightful new nieghborhood friends--a brilliant French conductor and a remarkably talented American born pianist, to dinner here just after the New Year. I know that Emmanuel and Andrew will enjoy this place as much as I do, and I fully expect that it'll be even better in a year's time than it is today.

5 rue Henri Monnier, 9th, Tel. 01-45-26-26-30. Metro: Pigalle or Saint Georges

Closed Sunday and Monday.

Menus: 18 Euros (lunch), 25 Euros--two courses, 32 Euros--three courses.