ig-city flavors find a semi-pretentious home in little Yorkville. This courtyard restaurant/lounge is comfortably loungey without being too snooty. Though you might expect a dress code, there isn't one, meaning blue-jeaned weekenders drink and dine next to the most expensive after-work suits. The resto is all one room, where a long bar offers the chance to sit and enjoy a heady cocktail.

labrasserie.ca keeps Yorkville hours, staying open for lunch through ‘'til late-night, specializing in modified French cuisine and in light bites for the late cocktail crowd.

The menu, designed by chef Louis Panotier, keeps it simple with a seasonal menu of French-inspired items, such as steamed mussels, coq au vin and Salmon Mille Feuille, all prepared in an exhibition kitchen in the rear of the room. Labrasserie.ca has its own entrance off the Cumberland courtyard and a decidedly French look, not much different from when it was Zola.

THE ATMOSPHERE
Fashionable like a Sunday New York Times Magazine advertisement, with all the details -- good and bad -- of a big-city brasserie: dim, romantic lights, towering flower arrangements, mellow jazz (early), keyboards (later), and, for tables situated near the bar, smoke and noise.

WHAT TO WEAR
While there's no dress code, you'd feel out of place in a T-shirt and jeans.

IF ONLY WE HAD KNOWN
The late night aphrodisiac menu is a quality-studded menu of tapas-style entries that may not be textbook, hard-on performance food, but the effort is there. And hell, if it gives us a reason to have that one last oyster on the half shell, why not.

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