La Petite Casserole

La Petite Casserole restaurant in Paris' 13th arrondissement near the Francois Mitterand Library is exactly the sort of restaurant you feared had vanished from the Parisien streets: a comfortable, welcoming, inexpensive restaurant serving typical French cuisine with pride and skill. In this age of irony and self-consicousness, La Petite Casserole is the real deal. The red awning and light canteloupe interior is decorated with a variety of original art, especially by artists still in primary school, and kitted out with red table linens and comfortable wooden seating. A bar divides the front dining room from the back, both of which are filled with savvy diners of the neighbourhood who enjoy the meat, duck, fish, and pasta dishes, and the French wines. Joseph is your host and he seems to be everywhere at once, serving, advising, greeting, tweaking. The ingredients are top drawer and the dishes excellent.