Le Gigot

Everyone should have a little French restaurant that loves them. Tucked into a narrow storefront along Cornelia Street’s mellow restaurant row, the petite but elegant Le Gigot has a tiny welcoming bar (and a prime people-watching window seat) fronting an 11-table dining room. Grilled quail comes neatly disjointed over a tangle of frisée scattered with smoky lardons; flambéed bananas, drenched tableside in cognac and set alight, manage to be both goofily dramatic and deeply comforting.