Bistro or not bistro, traditional or modern, duck confit or not duck confit, to me those are not the real questions.
A real French restaurant in my book, is a place that is owned and managed by a French person, and where the main piano in the kitchen is played by a French chef de cuisine, or at least a professional chef who has been trained to execute the French repertoire properly.
But being French myself, I'm a bit biased toward the real thing. I have dined in so many so-called French restaurants over my last 40 years in the U.S. where the menu was looking French for sure, but where what you got on your plate was only a pale imitation of the original, that after a long period of adaptation and compromise, I'm re-evaluating the whole situation and I am becoming more demanding, and looking for the real thing.
But, of course, I would be the first to applaud the dozens of very talented young American chefs in the Chicago area who are perfectly able to prepare great meals influenced by French cuisine or following an apprenticeship with an authentic French chef that did either In France or over here. But to me their cuisine remains French-influenced modern American cuisine. And if I want to eat a real Coq au Vin or a rabbit in a mustard sauce I will certainly choose one of the best French bistros owned by a French professional to do so.
It is however true that several non-American chefs in Chicago, like Michael Altenber or Charlie Socher for example, are perfectly able to produce very satisfying French classic bistro dishes.

P.S The evolution of the French cuisine in Chicago '' French'' restaurants over he last 50 years is fascinating. I have been researching the subject for the last 12 months and just began to publish last week a series of pieces on that topic on my blog, French Virtual Cafe.

alain40 wrote:A real French restaurant in my book, is a place that is owned and managed by a French person, and where the main piano in the kitchen is played by a French chef de cuisine, who has been trained to execute the French repertoire properly.

You do know that most of the cooking at most restaurants the size of most of those listed upthread is usually not done by the owner or head chef, but by a series of other people, not often of the same nationality as the owner.

A cook once told me that "most of the food you eat at restaurants IS Mexican food" . . . meaning, of course, that it was likely prepared by a person from Mexico.

MelT,

I have to agree with you. It is a contemporary reality that in many French restaurants nowadays, the chef is no longer necessarily French. I think that I'm too nostalgic of the period (in the 70's and 80's) when owners and co-owners of French restaurants in the Chicago area were also French chefs who had been trained in France. Names that come to my mind are Jean Banchet, Lucien Vergé, Bernard Cretier, Jean-Claude Poilevey, Bernard Lecoq, Henri Coudrier, and many others.
And it is true that nowadays many owners and chefs of local French bistros, like Café Matou (Charlie Socher) or Bistro Campagne (Michael Altenberg) have solid backgrounds in real French cuisine and produce fine dishes.

alain40 wrote: A real French restaurant in my book, is a place that is owned and managed by a French person, and where the main piano in the kitchen is played by a French chef de cuisine, or at least a professional chef who has been trained to execute the French repertoire properly.

I think you'd probably have go to to France to find that, but..

one place that's relatively new though decisively French (Jean Claude moved here from Paris) is Paris in Chicago...
Paris in Chicago
3310 N Halsted St
Chicago, IL 60657
(773) 883-7288

cyrano's which has been mentioned is ran by zee very French chef Didier...

if we're not talking about classical strictly French cuisine, then why stop there and leave out all of the great French fusion to be found