Le Baratin

A no-frills French bistro, a personal haven

26 Greenwich Ave. | West Village, Manhattan

Everyone should have a French bistro to call their own. A reliable haunt where you know the menu will rarely change, where red wine is plentiful, where you tuck in and the hours blend. It doesn’t have to be the best, it just has to be yours. Le Baratin is mine.

There are countless bistros around New York, some from fine-dining chefs gone comfy or restaurant groups optimizing the menu down to the number of lardons on your Salade Lyonnaise. But Le Baratin has a gives-no-fucks relentlessness to it that appeals to me—I want a bistro that feels like it would be here doing this whether anyone showed up or not.

When I lived in Chicago, my spot was Bistro Margot on Wells Street—RIP—with its cozy sprawl of tables and crunchy, butter-soaked green beans. The first place I ever met my wife’s parents. In Los Angeles it was Le Petit Bistro on La Cienega—RIP—where I’d spend birthdays with sole a la Provençale and apple tart à la mode, lucky if the accordion player was there in the back that night, or a jazz trio with a singer.

I can’t remember who first took me to Le Baratin, or whether I wandered in off the street, or if I looked it up. All of my memories of the place have meshed into a warm glow of hearty dinners and leaning into candlelight.