On a recent rainy weekend afternoon, a young, elegantly dressed couple sat in the window of Mon Ami in Fitzroy, holding hands over glasses of red wine. The room – dark wood, lace curtains, specials scrawled on a well-worn blackboard – was cosy, all five tables occupied.

As always, the restaurant had only two workers, the chef, John Langevad, sequestered in his tiny kitchen, and his wife and waitress/hostess/bartender Ulla working the front of the house. For 21 years Mon Ami has operated this way, the couple serving a menu of classic French dishes, with a particular focus on duck.

The place is dripping in charm. There is no wine list. Instead, you can peruse a wall of wine at the back of the restaurant, during which time you’re likely to strike up a conversation with whoever is sitting closest – its cosiness encourages sociability.

When I mention the restaurant to people, they often say, “Oh, is that the place on Nicholson Street?” They’ve noticed the awning from the 96 tram, for instance, and maybe wondered about it. But they’ve never heard anything much about the place, so it exists only as a passing curiosity.

Mon Ami rarely gets written up on lists of Melbourne’s best French restaurants, which is perhaps because it’s fallen comfortably into its role as a neighbourhood staple – the type of place where the regulars are loyal and new customers are rare – and also because Langevad’s cooking is neither completely old-school nor new and trendy, falling somewhere in between.

But Mon Ami does something quite magical, something that I notice in many of Melbourne’s mid-tier, under-sung French restaurants but which I’ve not seen anywhere else in the world: It channels Paris in an almost astonishing way.

The City of Light is full of restaurants like Mon Ami: tiny, run by a couple or a family, romantic but not chic, not particularly ambitious or exciting but nevertheless lovely and comforting.

These are not places that wind up on lists for travellers – you’re much more likely to stumble onto them by accident, or on the recommendation of a friend, who might quantify their endorsement with something like, “It’s not wildly impressive, but it’s quintessential to the neighbourhood and I adore it.”

In Melbourne, France-Soir is probably the best known of these types of restaurants – in my recent review of the 38-year-old South Yarra stalwart I wrote, “This really does feel like a neighbourhood bistro in Paris, right down to the uneven cooking.”

But many other, lesser-known spots perform this same magic trick, transporting diners to France in a way that feels miraculous.

Many of Melbourne’s mid-tier French restaurants channel Paris in an almost astonishing way. 

In Carlton, Paris Go has been operating since 1993. (I’m told “Paris go” is French slang for busy Parisians, always on the go.) On weekend nights its double-fronted dining room, with its white tablecloths and vintage French posters, is packed with in-the-know regulars.

Again, the wonder of this place is in the details that put it squarely in a Parisian neighbourhood: the menus, sleeved in plastic; the waiters, all French and a tad aloof; the menu, full of dishes that are standards in France but aren’t as easy to find here.

The French onion soup is a bit underwhelming, just as it was when I had it on a rainy afternoon in Paris at a random bistro I stopped into with my father two decades ago, but many other dishes are done very well.

The seafood quenelles in prawn sauce, the assiette froide (a plate of silky cured ocean trout, chicken liver pâté and pork and veal terrine), the grilled sardines with olive oil, all channel the deep pleasure of eating in Paris at an un-trendy but beloved-by-locals bistro.

The same is true of Franco-Belge in Hawthorn East, Chez Bob in Armadale, Ouest France in Mornington and countless other unassuming spots that lack grandeur or vogueishness but do what they do exceptionally well.

The mystery of these places is how they can remain so popular while also flying under the radar – why, in this food-obsessed city, do we ignore these neighbourhood favourites? Are we ashamed to admit that sometimes we want the comfort of the familiar, rather than the new and shiny? Are we still afraid that our tastes are perhaps a bit quotidian, rather than always fresh, always modern, always cutting-edge?

When it comes to French food, I suppose “comfort” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. We want elegance, grandeur, pomp! And many restaurants in Melbourne deliver that kind of French experience – you can find them on all of those “best French restaurants” lists I’ve been scouring recently.

I adore those spots, too, when I’m in the mood for a sense of occasion. But more often you can find me tucked into a table at Mon Ami, pretending I’m in Paris, feeling utterly transported.

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