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On a strip of Second Avenue overrun by forgetable bars and nondescript restaurants, La Mangeoire offers a surprisingly cheerful patch of Provence. The decorative accent is rustic: gleaming copper pans, ceramic pitchers, and garlic braids embellish the walls, along with agricultural implements, such as a bridle-and-mouthpiece unit for a horse or cow. Enormous floral arrangements and still-life paintings splash color across the restaurant, while a handsome, potbelly stove sits in the main room (it's used to store linens). The menu is equally traditional, with hardly a nod to nouvelle, let alone fusion-oriented French cooking. Classic appetizers run the gamut from a thick and savory Provençale-style fish soup to escargots, pâté, and a honey-and-thyme caramelized onion tart that expertly balances the sweetness of its main ingredient with a thin, crispy crust. Standout entrées include a meaty, nicely crisped fillet of striped bass, diver sea scallops served with a ginger-scented lobster sauce, and tender, herb-crusted lamb chops. There's also a luscious chicken tagine, which arrives in an attractive Moroccan clay pot: remove the pointy lid and you're enveloped in a mouth-watering aroma of prunes, raisins, garlic, onions, and fine-tuned seasonings. The restaurant's three small dining rooms lend intimacy to the somewhat older crowd, and the option of ordering scaled-down portions of entrées lets customers linger over the fine desserts. — Nina Mehta

At lunchtime on Saturdays, the restaurant is reserved for private parties. At other times groups of 10-25 can inhabit one of the restaurant's three dining rooms.

Prix-Fixe Menus
Two-course lunch, $19.25; three-course dinner, $28

Caramelized onion tart, $11.25; Provençale-style fish soup, $12.50; fillet of striped bass, $29