Café du Soleil opened last week in the space formerly occupied by Movida. For the neighborhood, it seems like a win-win situation: le Soleil still serves the wine-and-beer under the same license as Movida, plus it has fresh organic breads and croissants (plain $2) delivered every morning. And outside seating. And open-faced sandwiches, aka. tartines ($8 for lunch with a salad or homemade chips, $5 for dinner for a half order). On the other hand, closing time is 10pm, a bit earlier than Movida, so one now has to hop a block to Toronado, Noc-Noc, the Mad Dog, etc. for their late night libations. We cannot review le Soleil without a favorable bias, we live up the street and have been going there to fetch our baguette ($1.50).

To talk about Café du Soleil's, we called the owner, Pascal Rigo, our compadre, and had a little chat with him, en français. Everyone has been eating Pascal's bread: he is the man behind Bay Bread and a bunch of bakeries and restaurants: la boulangerie, la boulange de cole, la boulange de polk, rigolo, cortez, galette, le petit robert, chez nous. Sometimes, we have been eating his bread unknowingly: he sells bread to most of the best dining rooms in the city: the ritz-carlton, aqua, gary danko's, and the one we all patronize, trader joe's.

More about Café du Soleil and our chat with Pascal Rigo after the jump. Photos courtesy of Yoriko Fukushi and Baybread.com.