Gaspar is the new, Paris-inspired, old-school brasserie that opened a few weeks back in the space formerly home to Midi, Hecho, and long ago, Perry's, at the Galleria Park Hotel (185 Sutter Street). We showed you some photos, and now I'm here to talk a bit about the food. The stellar cocktail program from barman Kevin Diedrich (Jasper's, Burritt Room) is a definite highlight, as are the delectably French desserts from pastry chef Chucky Dugo (Slanted Door). But the menu has a prominent focus on seafood, and the best dish I tasted so far is the meunière-style wild flounder with sauce grenobloise. It's a simple and classic preparation for fish in which a filet gets dredged in flour and pan-fried, and the sauce is just butter, lemon, parsley, and capers.

Chef Chris Jones executes the dish flawlessly, serving it with a simple potato puree and wilted spinach, and it's just the type of classic and satisfying entrée you want to find when you hear the word "brasserie." Also, it's a way to transport yourself for a minute to Julia Child's first day in France, which she wrote about in her terrific memoir My Life In France, when she and her husband Paul stopped off at a roadside inn in Rouen on their drive to Paris and she ate her first bite of authentically French food: sole meunière, with sauce grenobloise.

She wrote:

It arrived whole: a large, flat Dover sole that was perfectly browned in a sputtering butter sauce with a sprinkling of chopped parsley on top... I closed my eyes and inhaled the rising perfume. Then I lifted a forkful of fish to my mouth, took a bite, and chewed slowly. The flesh of the sole was delicate, with a light but distinct taste of the ocean that blended marvelously with the browned butter. I chewed slowly and swallowed. It was a morsel of perfection.