“This is what Paris will be like,” I told my lunch companion as she spoke of her upcoming trip there. The stay-awhile ambience, the interior wrought iron, the uncorrupted rustic food – they all add up to Café Cerise, which felt like a dozen places I’ve eaten salad nicoise in the Left Bank.

It came as no surprise when I spoke afterwards with Chef/Proprietor Jason Seibert to learn that he worked in kitchens throughout Europe – and that he can use a hearty break from all of the Asian-fusion fare that surrounds us. The capers and coddled egg on the Caesar Salad were my first clues that the café isn’t using a French word in its name to create a depthless theme. “Cerise,” he said, translates to “cherry,” which shows up fresh in the café’s Grilled Calves Liver and Cherry Crumble dessert.

And like many Paris cafes that incorporate stylish effects into classically old structures, Seibert sprung for new bamboo flooring and artsy bubbles painted across the walls without compromising the dining room’s circa-1917 architectural features. The blueprint, however, comes with the added bonus of a central stairway leading up to a full bar as well as balcony-type seating areas that seem highly inviting.

After my companion admitted to throwing in the towel on her South Beach diet, we began nibbling from a basket of naughty herbed flatbread. A fair amount of slurping followed with the arrival of Shrimp Sausage soup, which faintly resembled lobster bisque. The above-mentioned Caesar was also divine, a leafy presentation harboring cloves of caramelized garlic and shavings of top-quality Parmesan cheese.

If you’re hell bent on a light lunch, you can either conclude here, or like us, proceed on to entrees of a richer French nature. Since quality wins over portion size (and that’s not a complaint), there is no sense in passing up some of Seifert’s ever-changing main courses, which dictate the printing of new lunch and dinner menus daily.

By default, my eating companion essentially returned to her South Beach diet with an Open Face Meatloaf Sandwich topped with luscious Gruyere cheese and grilled red onions. The kitchen, however, had forgotten to include the olive bread with the thick, soft slice of meat. “Just as well,” she remarked, as the accompanying herbed potato pancake was enough to meet today’s carb quota.

My dish exemplified European country cooking at its best – a robust-tasting dish of house-made pappardelle pasta tossed with leeks, olives and boneless short ribs braised to incredible perfection in wine and beef stock. Seibert says he generally features an extended-cooked meat item every day, such as shank, brisket or veal stew, any of which offer a nice departure from those everyday sandwich-shop lunches.

But lunch-hour visitors who work on time clocks may need to request a little extra slack from their bosses. For starters, this isn’t your typical slapdash food as we were faced with options such as Charcuterie Plate of Duck, Grilled Vegetable Lasagna with Morbier Cheese and Shepard’s Pie of Lamb and Beef. And secondly, the wait staff, though effusively welcoming, seemed to disappear for longer-than-usual stretches at a time toward the end of our meal.

Nonetheless, we concluded on a perfectly content note with a takeout wedge of excellent lemon cheesecake crowned with fresh cream, not to mention an urge to come back and hang out longer over drinks, coffee and more fine food. This is definitely a place to bring friends.

In a word of note to weekday night crawlers, the café plans to expand its kitchen and bar hours soon. The staff recommends that customers call ahead of time for an update.