Ruth Reichl, one-time New York Times restaurant critic, claimed in a memoir that she never reviewed a restaurant before she’d eaten there (anonymously) three times. Which meant she generally felt it necessary to go in disguise. The recent discomfiture of a friend who went back to Le Chateaubriand after dining with me there a couple of weeks ago shows how useful Reichl’s self-imposed regimen could be. Not only did my companion find the self-same minimalist menu (three starters, three main courses and three desserts), but she also found a sea-change in the service, which was mostly grumpy and rushed. Not to mention the hour-long wait to pay after the check had been brought to the table.

I’ve patronized Le Petit Machon, a pretty Lyon-style bistro in Paris, for a number of years, even to the point of having my first dîner à deux with my girlfriend there and, within its limitations, it has never disappointed me. The welcome is always warm and the staff friendly and efficient. This time round, we were looked after by a pleasantly feisty Polish waitress and the youthful patron himself. Toward the end of the evening, he puts on cool jazz classics – adding to the ambiance provided by soft lighting from chandliers and little lamps – as the service winds gently down for the night.

Le Petit Machon probably gets more than its fair share of foreign tourists, largely because it’s within hailing distance of the Louvre, but it’s none the worse for that. Remember that there’s an inverse relationship between the number of foreign diners and the amount of tobacco smoke in a French restaurant.

Lyon, France’s second city, is famed for its hearty food tradition. As a young whelp I was treated to a couple of memorable meals there, dished up by the traditional “mères” – female chefs running small, homey restaurants serving high-quality food. The mères are gone now, but the adjective “Lyonnais” conjures up rich visions of tripe and sausage and roast meat and poultry. And that is largely what you get at Petit Machon, with a few original twists.

Take my brandade de sandre aux escargots starter. A brandade is basically well-seasoned, reconstituted dried cod mashed with potatoes and flashed under a grill. In this case, though, the fish was freshwater sandre, or perch-pike, currently in season, done with a topping of earthy-tasting gastropods. The lobster salad my friend Maurice ordered was nondescript, but the Nantua sauce on Lisa’s quenelles (which look like white sausages but are traditionally made from another freshwater fish, pike – the Rhône and Saône, the rivers running through Lyon, teem with them) was a judicious choice.

Then came the rack of lamb, cooked to the pink of perfection, accompanied by meaty gravy and a creamy, cheese-free (as it should be) gratin dauphinois. My companions had duck with chocolate sauce and a pot roast of veal, dense but not stringy, with another of those shiny, meaty reductions that take lots of meat bones, hours of time and a large oven to bring to perfection.

Instead of dessert, we plumped for cheese and shared a perfectly presented Saint Marcellin and a fresh goat’s milk crottin. These paired well with a fine Saint Joseph – once we had gotten over the disappointment of not getting our first choice, a Vacqueyras, nor the second, Gigondas. After you have salivated your way through the wine list and made your choice, it’s irritating to be told that it’s not available. And it’s by no means a rare occurrence. In this day and age of computerized menus and wine lists, you would think that an updated list could be presented to customers, even in a place that has no pretensions to Michelin star status.

Still, the absence of pretensions of any kind is the nicest thing about Le Petit Machon. It’s cool, like the jazz.

Le Petit Machon: 158, rue Saint Honoré, 75001 Paris. Métro: Palais Royal. Tel.: 01 42 60 08 06. Closed Monday. A la carte: about 35 euros.

Richard Hesse

© 2006 Paris Update

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Reader Sergey Petrovich Belsky writes: "I visited Le Petit Machon a month ago and I have some good impressions about this place. My wife and I were walking around the Tuileries Garden and looking for a place to have our lunch. We went past one by one, because no restaurants appealed to us. But, in the end, we were hungry and tired, that’s why we decided to enter the very next door we would see. Fortunately, it happened to be Le Petit Machon. A young chef welcomed us and suggested some choice of tables. Then we discovered a chalkboard menu and ordered starter escargot "L’espagnol" and foie gras. The main courses were salmon with herbs and duck in caramel sauce. The wine list was short and consisted of 6-7 positions, but the chief recommended a really good Bordeaux for 20 euros. The starters were excellent! Escargot in cheese-cream sauce was so nice that my wife finished her meal with a piece of bread. My foie gras with ryccola and jam was also pleasant.
The main dishes were really good for this small restaurant and lunchtime. It’s necessary to mention, that to watch the chief ‘s work is very interesting. He welcomes the guests, explains the menu on the board, serves the meals, prepares checks, teaches a new waitress, explaining how to cut the cake, prepare cocktails and other things with smile and patience. And all these things he does at the same time. He is like Tsesar. He is really Boss of his place, a good  and kind boss for the stuff and guests. We were satisfied with food, wines, prices, friendly service and I think, during the next visit to Paris we will come there again." 17/4/08

Reader Richard DeCesare of Brooklyn, New York, writes: "I had the great misfortune of visiting (and eating in) this restaurant on July 10th. It was a humiliating exercise in how much arrogance and hostility one can be subjected to and be charged money for it, to boot.

"Thinking we could come in from the rain and cold and secure a table at the neither too late nor too early hour of 7:00 p.m.on a Tuesday evening, we were met by a young lady who told us that dinner would be served at 7:40 p.m.(precisely). When my wife asked if we could have a drink while waiting for dinner, our hostess put up her hand, preventing her from stepping further into the restaurant. She said, curtly, you can have a drink at the bar across the street. We took her up on this; our mistake was returning.

"At 7:45 p.m. we found the restaurant about half occupied.  We were escorted to a table and met our server, a man in his mid to late forties (who looked to be the brother of our happy hostess).  We were never shown the plats du jour on the board but attempted to read the chalky scrawl from two tables away.  Since the handwriting was illegible (it was smeared), I commented to our waiter that it was difficult to read and asked if he could explain the items. Visibly annoyed, he then proceeded to explain in the most demeaning and nasty manner imaginable what each of the items were, and in English (I speak pretty good French). With every explanation, he would ask me, condescendingly, 'You know what ....is, don't you?'  He repeated and re-repeated this bombast and I just sat there stunned – I literally could not believe this was happening.  He left and we thought of doing the same but didn't because we were tired and hungry.

"The food was wonderful but who wants to eat in a restaurant where you're clearly not welcome?  I have been to Paris many times and have never experienced such outright hostility at a restaurant.  Restaurateurs purvey hospitability as well as food.  As there was absolutely none of the former at this establishment, here is a case of how sometimes half a loaf is worse than none. 

"I would counsel anyone – tourists especially – to not go to this restaurant."