The setting is a classic Hollywood version of the perfect little French bistro. The walls are eggshell white, accented with red and black and dotted with gilt-framed mirrors and sweetly Gallic artwork. Daily specials scrawled on a blackboard over the open kitchen are recited with flair by a team of briskly competent, black-clad waiters while diners fill the room with bubbly chatter.

With just two dozen seats tightly packed at dark walnut-tone tables on a terra cotta floor, North Miami newcomer Petit Rouge is just as cute as a champignon.

Owner Neal Cooper, who won many loyal fans during the past decade and a half with Neal's Café and, later, Il Migliore, has achieved with French food the same things he managed for Italian eats in Aventura.

He makes it approachable and affordable even for those who may not know a lardon from a lasagne. Cooper excels at turning out gorgeous, generous portions of well-executed food without rough edges, and he offers a greatest hits of French bistro fare. In addition to onion soup, moules frites, escargot, foie gras, salmon tartare, steak au poivre, sole meuniere, duck confit and roasted chicken, he also includes crispy veal sweetbreads and sautéed calves liver. Add such standard Americanized hits as Caesar salad, shrimp cocktail, meatloaf and macaroni and cheese, and this delightfully welcoming bistro becomes a darling.

But the simple, embraceable menu is not all that achieves wonders in a neighborhood in which the best fare is obtained from drive-through windows. Impeccable servers also make Cooper's formula work.

They are quick to bring a basket of hot and crackly baguette sliced and served with a generous pat of sweet butter, quick to refill a water glass. And, yes, you will get zero attitude if you choose the stuff from the tap. They are also surprisingly knowledgeable about everything from the French-focused wine list to the delicious desserts.

The simplest dishes are among the best. Case in point: a homey half-roast chicken partially deboned and served with its skin gorgeously crisped to a caramel color and flecked with lots of finely chopped herbs. Thick as cigars, the almost greaseless frites are perfectly sliced, addictively crispy, salty and puffily moist and steaming inside.

Another excellent crowd pleaser is the tarte flambée, a perfectly decadent starter. A sort of flaky, thin Alsatian-style flatbread, it is baked with a smattering of cre`me frache, sweet onions and tiny cubes of bacon. The richly salty, creamy and crunchy pie is sliced in fourths but could make a pleasant meal for one alongside any of the competent salads, including the simple mesclun mix.

Salads are recommendable but not transporting. Greens are fresh, and dressing is distributed with a light hand, but somehow the combination lacks that magical French touch.

By far one of the most popular dishes is the thin, juicy skirt steak covered in sweetly sweated shallots and a mellow red wine jus.

Fish entrees also satisfy. A narrow slab of trout, its silvery skin topped with tiny croutons and capers, is a winner, as is the plump salmon in a Provençal sauce of tomato and garlic. All sides, including fine green beans and steamed asparagus, are textbook.

The ingredients at play here seem no more refined than items you might pick up at Costco just a mile up the road, but in the capable hands of chef Cooper, they are transformed.

Well, maybe not all of them. A rather flabby duck confit fell flat; so did pricey, pencil eraser-sized escargot served sans shell. The six little snails arrived with hardly a whiff of garlic in a parsley butter sauce that had grown a custardy skin by the time it hit our table. Another miss was the duck rillettes. A dish so rich it usually is served in a small ramekin is here a fist-sized mound of shredded white flesh that, even with all the right accompaniments -- a tuft of frisee, cornichons, olives and croutons -- has all the personality of deli chicken salad.

Don't let a meal end without sampling an unusually pristine coffee service, one of the best I've had in such an unapologetically low-key spot. The heady Illy brew is served steaming from an individual French press with a pitcher of real cream.

The coffee pairs perfectly with the simple dessert selection that includes a rich, smooth vanilla petit pot du cre`me in a tiny white ceramic-topped custard cup. Easier to share is the flourless chocolate torte topped with fresh berries, the buttery apple tarte or even the lick-the-plate-clean profiteroles doused in creamy chocolate.

Victoria Pesce Elliott reviews Miami-Dade restaurants. E-mail her at velliott@MiamiHerald.com.

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