Café Noir

The cocktail menu at CAFÉ NOIR sounds like a checklist at a Marseille bordello: Dirty Frenchman, Naked French Maid, French Tickler, and, for beginners, a French Kiss. Actually, the playful mood is akin to the polymorphous perversity of children that Freud wrote about: for gastronomic innocents, if only for an evening, who haven’t learned that cholesterol is naughty. The playfulness culminates in Windex-blue puffs of cotton candy, on the house, served with your check. Restaurateur John Elkay opened this on the location of his former XO Steakhouse, speaking of carnal. Perhaps an intervention is in order, since the poor man can’t refrain from having burger sliders described here as Les Petits Hamburgers Ménage à Trois. One effect is that upon notic-ing the innocuous Brasserie Salade, you can’t help but think they might have misspelled the undergarment. | 125 North Main Street, Providence | 401.272.2116 | cafenoirri.com