Advertised and propped up by its owners as French, 'rue Noyes' and such, hyperventilated by the community, there is nothing French in this place to start with the food whose sandwiches are more Italian than French. The space itself is unkept, cramped. They had 70 years to make it relevant, make room for sitting tables, adding space and instead a coffee shop and a take out restaurant moved left and right, squeezing them. I dont know how they could have the nerve of hanging a sign on the door asking the community to pay the rent. The only place in Chicago looking like my beloved French Carette in the Trocadero in Paris is the Penninsula Pierrot Gourmet with their French pastry Chef Dimitri Fayard. The small plates, the scramble eggs, are suberb. Others like one in Lincoln Park West are not even close. They are pretending. Actualy my other favorite place in Chicago is Italian, Eataly, huge, who alone would get me to relocate to the city.
