Going Gallic in Dupont Circle

What used to be Johnny's Half Shell is now a French bistro

** Montsouris

2002 P St. NW

202-833-4180

Open: lunch Monday through Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., dinner Monday through Saturday 5:30 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Closed Sundays. All major credit cards. No smoking. Metro: Dupont Circle. Street parking. Prices: dinner appetizers $6 to $15, entrees $17 to $23.50. Full dinner with wine, tax and tip about $70 per person.

The game of musical chairs is finally over. In one of the more interesting restaurant shuffles of the year, Johnny's Half Shell transferred from Dupont Circle to Capitol Hill, and the owners of a popular address on the Hill, Montmartre, took over Johnny's old digs with a sibling named Montsouris.

Farewell, gumbo and grilled squid. Bonjour, steak tartare and chestnut soup.

As sorry as Johnny's fans were to see it go, there's fresh reason to sample the neighborhood, which already counts a very good source for fish (Pesce) but until now hasn't offered much of anything Gallic. Montsouris distinguishes itself from Montmartre -- the source of braised rabbit on creamy noodles and shaved scallops brightened with olive oil and lime -- with a menu that emphasizes the simple and straightforward. Chef Stephane Lezla, who co-owns both Montmartre and Montsouris and shares cooking duties at the latter with Sebastian Ager, says the idea was to create a place where he and his business partners could look forward to "steak and charcuterie and pâté." Curiously, some of the meat at the newcomer is less of a draw than what it comes with, and I'm more inclined to appreciate the restaurant as a package than for its parts. Easygoing and quick with a charcuterie plate, Montsouris is nevertheless one of those restaurants you don't mind visiting again and again. "This will be my third time," a city friend let me know when I invited him to lunch one day. He sounded pleased for the chance to return.

If my restaurant rounds are any indication, bone marrow is destined to become the tuna carpaccio of appetizers, one of those dishes that you are surprised to spot one day, then start seeing everywhere. Where has marrow been hiding all these years? Its appeal is obvious: A lot of us love fat, and fat gives food flavor. Lots of fat -- lined in a vertically split bone, poached, then scooped out, slathered atop grilled bread and sprinkled with salt, as is the practice at Montsouris -- is a decadent delicacy for the carnivore.

I'm a fool for steak tartare, and I try it every chance I can. (Let me clarify: I order it when I trust the kitchen is clean and the raw beef is of high quality.) The recipe at Montsouris places a runny cap of basil oil, Swiss cheese and creme fraiche on a red round of rugged beef chunks. Some classics shouldn't be tinkered with, and this is one of them. The entree's companion, though, was immediately and eagerly embraced by everyone at the table -- a bowl of hot, crisp french fries has that effect on diners.

As a general rule here, the fewer the ingredients, the better the dish. Oysters pass through a deft shucker before they reach you as a plate of bivalves on the half shell. A salad of biting chicory tossed with crisp lardons and adorned with a quarter-size quail egg suggests something you'd see at a typical French bistro. And what's not to like about dewy slices of house-cured salmon with a dollop of lemony cream sauce on bread? One day's special of chestnut soup, flavored with bacon and apple, was a soothing salute to the season. But it came in a bowl that should have been a demitasse; the thick beige soup is very rich and quick to fill up its recipient.

Named for a park in Paris, Montsouris can be a little rough around the edges when compared with its sibling. Montmartre serves a beet salad of elegance; the one here includes beets so raw they crunch like cracked wheat. Other dishes hover in the realm of the merely pleasant. Small, sweet steamed mussels are arranged to look like a blossoming flower in their bowl, but their buttery broth turns in a one-note performance. (It needs salt, herbs, something to foil the richness.) A square of butcher steak is cooked as we like, but it's not a very flavorful cut; the meat is upstaged by a cake of mashed potatoes, bacon and creme fraiche -- food for the soul, if not for the heart. Similarly, rib-eye steak is most enjoyable for its bearnaise sauce and gratineed potatoes.

My best encounter with meat was a fist-size veal T-bone, strewn with shallots cooked with garlic and parsley in butter, and served with a raft of nicely seasoned asparagus. Of the bistro staples, duck confit with herbed, roasted potatoes, and thick coins of grilled pork sausage on several inches of lentils in a little black casserole, are the stuff of 5 o'clock office daydreams.

Be it sauteed cod or grilled tuna, the kitchen cooks fish with care. Tuna is my first choice. The entree is served as upended bars of seared but rare fish arranged with soft, sweet baby fennel, warm and tender green beans, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to tie the elements together. Cod is lovely on its own. Add an overpowering saffron sauce, as this place does, and the fish gets lost. Throw in some heavy and stiff gnocchi, as Montsouris also does, and the dish dips into deep disappointment.

The soft blues and greens that distinguished Johnny's have been replaced with a palette of lipstick-red banquettes and dusky gold walls. Lezla hoped to merge a French brasserie with an American diner, an effect supported with stainless steel in the waiters' station and bar area. The room remains long and narrow, light-filled by day and moodier in the evening.

Desserts are models of good taste. Plump apples on a light pastry yield a terrific tart Tatin, its caramelized notes tempered with creme fraiche. Proof that not all chocolate sorbets are scooped from the same container is Montsouris's dark, dense and decadent version, reminiscent of a truffle and more bitter than sweet. Pistachio pudding, served in an outsize bowl, is big enough for two -- and far too easy to finish. There are also cheeses to close a meal, and they're served with long slices of grilled bread.

If you visit Montsouris with visions of Montmartre dancing in your head, you might be underwhelmed. In its youth, the new kid on the block is inconsistent. But the reward for leaving expectations behind is delight in discovering plenty that's already right.

To chat with Tom Sietsema online, go to washingtonpost.com on Wednesdays at 11 a.m.