Allegretti (CLOSED)

For all its bistros and brasseries, New York’s still hurting for great French regional cooking. Enter Allegretti, a Flatiron eatery that peddles the sort of refined seasonal fare you’d expect to discover on a country road near Marseille. Chef-owner Alain Allegretti serves what may be the city’s most elegant niçoise salad, featuring hard-boiled quail eggs, flaky Sicilian tuna and a bouquet of miniature vegetables. Saffron-enriched fish soup—built from a triumvirate of rascasse (scorpion fish), rouget (red mullet) and lotte (monkfish)—is intoxicating. The staid dining room won’t transport you to the French Riviera, but the food certainly will.