Oh, dear. Where and what to eat in a Paris heat wave? That was the question exercising my dwindling mental faculties over the weekend. The idea of bistro food or robust country fare was not appealing. Mediterranean? But where? Not very appealing either was the idea of sitting in a small, overcrowded place with smokers for neighbors, Mediterranean food or no. That was when the vision of a large, elegant, high-ceilinged room with lots of space and light streaming in from two sides began forming, along with an image of the very place: Macéo, a stone’s throw from the Garnier Opéra. The perfect place, and a listed venue to boot.

Macéo is owned by one Mark Williamson, a British man who also owns the celebrated Willi’s Wine Bar, three doors along. Wine is a big thing at Macéo, too. For a start, you need the best part of two drinks to read the wine list through (Americans might be interested to note that the most expensive ones are Californian imports). But they also do some good little wines by the glass and the carafe.

Unfortunately, the most pervasive feeling throughout the evening was of a captain-less ship, adrift and rudderless. Which rather put a damper on the dining pleasure. We introduced ourselves on arrival to a seemingly terrified front-of-house mamzelle who couldn’t raise the ghost of a smile or manage a word as she pointed us toward our table. Some time later, I heard, and spied, the maître d’ hefting a jangling crate of empties through the dining room and down to the cellar. Full marks for keeping busy during slack times and doing menial tasks and all that. But before the last diners had left? We were also just too far away from the kitchen for the waiter to make sure that our glasses were kept well-filled. Nor was the said maître d’ able to tell me what grape the house red was made of. I wasn’t trying to show him up; it was simply that my companion doesn’t like gamay and I wanted to ascertain that it was made from some other grape.

Macéo is special however, in that its chef, Thierry Bourbonnais, concocts a short, but inventive, reasonably priced (€30) “green” menu especially for vegetarians. We both chickened out, however, and went for the ordinary menu, my companion plumping for the plump petits farcis de saumon mi-fumé aux aubergines grillées. It was beautifully made: the eggplant, coiled around a generous, oaky slice of semi-smoked salmon, had been cooked in a masterful olive oil through which I unashamedly dredged some bread. I chose the gambas sautées, haricots Paimpol en salade condimentée, which is longer to type than to eat but was just the sort of thing for hot weather. The shrimp was nutty and nicely grilled (doused in one of those fashionable froths that make the dish look as if it’s been removed from the washing machine before the rinse cycle), while the large, white Paimpol beans, their earthy flavor still intact beneath the herby dressing, melted in the mouth.

For main courses, it was meat and potatoes for my companion, although the meat was Aberdeen Angus sirloin and the potatoes of the mashed-with-olive-oil variety, garnished with seasonal chanterelle mushrooms. Macéo showed off by providing an ordinary table knife without a hint of serrated edge to cut it with, which was all that was required, so tender was the cut. But there was a suspicion that this was actually another symptom of the general benign neglect. And the meat was overdone, as was my suprême de turbot, grenailles de Noirmoutier.

Did the chef have an early assignation, and have the food kept warm while we finished our starters at a leisurely pace? It was certainly not a nice thing to do to a turbot, of all things. Nor was it my idea of the cuisine de l’instant touted on the menu. The tiny potatoes from Noirmoutier, the island that is to the common spud what the Caspian is to caviar, were just fine, as was the meaty jus topping them. But when the star ingredient brings back memories of Friday school dinners of yore… Oh, dear.

Neither of us was in the mood for dessert, although the list was pretty appetizing (especially the sautéed apricots on shortbread with red fruit caramel and mascarpone), but because we had just started on our second carafe of a feisty red Coteaux de Languedoc, I was in the mood for cheese, and a selection from Quatrehomme (a top purveyor of the moldy stuff – check it out on the Web and learn how Marie Quatrehomme is a “Best Workman of France”) was on offer.

Now, a restaurant that is proud of its cheese wheels it out on a trolley, and you can sample as many cheeses as you can name (I made that last bit up), but Macéo, as the designer blurb on the menu tells you, does things autrement, so we got the same presentation as in a 10-euro greasy spoon: three anonymous bits of cheese dumped unceremoniously on a plate. Very good cheese, make no mistake, but served without art or pride. Oh, dear.

Macéo should be a glorious place to eat, but is most definitely in need of some owner-inspired TLC. Or if he can’t be bothered, he should abandon ship entirely and let someone who does care take the helm.

Richard Hesse

Macéo: 15 rue des Petits Champs, 75001 Paris. Tel: 01 42 97 53 85. Fixed-price menus: €30, €36, and €48, special lunch at €27. A la carte: about €50 per person. Open Mon-Fri 12:15 p.m.-2 :30 p.m. and 7 :15 p.m.-11 p.m. www.maceorestaurant.com (doesn’t seem to have been updated very recently, but you’ll get the idea).

© 2006 Paris Update