le Marais

This is as close to a French Bistro as you will get in New York. It's loud (especially the ground floor), crowded (again the ground floor in particular), and has the tradiional white paper on the tables.

The meat is some of the best around (there is a butcher shop when you first enter) and the staff really knows its food.

This is well located for a pre-theater dinner, and the staff knows how to get you out in time. If you are not going to the theater and want a more relaxed evening, they do that very well too

We had reservations and had to wait a little so we enjoyed some drinks at the bar, We sat upstairs to eat (I highly reccomend this as the downstairs is VERY noisy!) The ambiance was nice, the service good and the food GREAT - My husband wanted his peppered steak well done and the waiter reccomended against ordering that cut well done saying it wouldn't be good and if he wanted well done perhaps he should order a different steak, my husband listend and ordered the steak done medium and was sooooo happy he did. I fully intend to go back there on my next trip to NY.