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Le Sélect Bistro
432 Wellington St. W., 416-596-6405

Bistro Bakery Thuet
609 King St. W., 416-603-2777

As I cut along Wellington Street to Le Sélect, Toronto’s enduringly popular translation of a French bistro, I find myself humming “Up on top of a rainbow, sweeping the clouds away.” This Maurice Chevalier standard was cannily crafted by an American to be more enchantingly French than the French. Ditto Le Sélect, which could have come from the set of An American in Paris, more like a Paris bistro than a real Paris bistro. When I call for a reservation, I am welcomed by a cock crowing and a few bars of La Marseillaise. I laugh aloud. Hokey, but oh so charming.

The charm offensive keeps up as I pass a poster of Marlene Dietrich in a ’30s Clouzot flick and hang my coat on a handy hook. In no time, the maître d’ has me seated in a corner of the double-sided red leather banquette, topped with a brass rail, that runs the length of the well of the room. Dark panelling is punctuated by wine racks, a reminder that co-owner Frédéric Geisweiller’s cellar contains 12,000 bottles. I sit opposite a woman eating alone. Nothing could better underline the democracy of a bistro where everyone is made welcome.

The menu is full of earthy regional dishes — pissaladière, choucroute garnie, tripe sausage, confit de canard, cassoulet, but I order my favourite Bistro standbys — a fat slice of terrine de foie gras with kumquat chutney ($18), a glass of Gewürztraminer ($7) and strip loin, sanglant, crispy potato cake and haricots verts, lots of them, and as I eat the deliciously anorexic beans, I raise my glass to the Kenyan farmers who grow them.

Ile Flottante, actually oeufs à la neige, but who cares what perfection is called, a pillow of egg white floating on a pool of custard. My francophile companion can’t get over the feather-light smoked white fish mousse with grilled eggplant and another Bistro standby, roast leg of lamb with fluffy potatoes. Three handmade cheeses from Québec end the meal. We toss two ears and the tail to Chef Albert Ponzo.

If anything, Le Sélect is even more charming at lunchtime with sun pouring into the tiled bar. I want to sit down with a cappuccino, and read Patricia Wells’s review of the latest Paris restaurant in the courtesy Herald Tribune. But my fellow luncher wants pigs trotters, today’s special, so we sit comfortably before the fire. I order calf liver. I’m apprehensive. Liver isn’t a no-brainer like steak. Unless cut slim and cooked medium rare, it has a pasty texture. This, alas, is the case with the thick wavy slices that come with solid potato cake and sautéed pea shoots. But what’s this? Sticks of barely cooked carrot, “hot raw” as Julia Child dismissed the fad for veg al dente.

“Your feets too big,” I want to say to the becrumbed trotter that easily laps its plate. The trotter presents another problem. Like other regional dishes, it has evolved from the terroir — tasty trotter cooking comes from a lifetime of eating them. Only someone with a pigless childhood could have stuffed the boned porker paw with so much fat, not much meat and few mushrooms.

Oh well, Le Sélect, like any real French bistro, is a club for regulars who stick with their faves. This is not so true for Thuet Bistro Bakery, last year’s sensation, hailed as the vrai taste of La France and on all the best of 2006 lists.

I ate a superb medallion of horse cooked by Marc Thuet when he was at The Fifth, so my hopes are high as I climb the stairs to his new home. They are dashed immediately.

1. Mr. Thuet is on a mini vacation, which means we must rely on his team, an unknown quantity. 2. The formal tawny room says banquet not bistro. 3. No solicitous maître d’ hurries to make us feel at home. Instead, a poker-faced Buster Keaton hands us the menu, or rather two menus in one, the Lord Black edition and a regional one for the little people.

My corporate friends go Black with Napoleon (two slices with garnish) of Quebec pâté de foie gras ($23) and terrine of wild hare and wild wood pigeon, the game smuggled personally into the country by Thuet, and topped with a slice of black truffle. Stuffed lamb loin has a tiny leg of wood pigeon on top. This shred of vapid flesh is worth risking a fine for? The chestnut- and datecrusted medallion of red deer ($42) doesn’t taste like Bambi. Both dishes have the blandness of high-end takeout, not the passion of a signature chef, which Thuet most certainly is — or was. Maybe he’s on more than a vacation.

That’s what I have to think after veal liver quenelles, the famous regional dumplings, turn out to be five grey ground-meat patties in UBS (universal bistro sauce with a burnt caramel flavour).

Buster Keaton removes my barely touched plate with sang-froid. We order black truffle bavarois on a disc of roasted pineapple (good), which arrives 40 minutes later with a cheese plate, prompting Buster Keaton to make his first suggestion of the evening. “Port?” he barks.

Just as we are leaving, a friendly man in blue shirtsleeves approaches. Was everything all right? Who are you? “I’m Stephen, the operations manager.” Er … the heating was fine, it was the eating … but it was too late. Stephen shows us the dear little bakery, empty now except for a bag of dog biscuits labelled “Woof Woof au foie gras.”

For the Black hound, I guess.

Le Sélect Bistro, dinner for two plus taxes, $95. Wine by the glass starts at $6.75. Huge wine list. No wheelchair access. BYOB corkage, $18.

Bistro Bakery Thuet, dinner for two plus taxes, $185. Wine by the glass starts at $10. Four-page wine list. No wheelchair access. BYOB corkage, $40.