WHERE TO EAT: For Bastille Day, A Roundup of Where To Dine Like The French.
This Bastille Day, France is in the World Cup Semi-Finals + we have a roundup of where to eat upstate when you want to pretend you’re in France.
CAPITAL REGION
Le Quai Bistrot Français Facebook · @lequaiawaterfordny · 49 Broad St, Waterford ·
Waterford is not where you'd expect to find a serious French restaurant, but here it is. Veteran chef-owner Mo Malih, a native of Fez, Morocco, certified grand sommelier, (and alumnus of both Jean-Georges Vongerichten's kitchen in Manhattan and the Michelin-starred Homestead Inn in Greenwich), runs the stoves, while former investment banker Robert Lizardo manages the room with a genuine love of hospitality and good wine. The three-page wine list leans heavily French, stocked with closeouts and end-bin finds that keep prices competitive, and Lizardo knows every bottle on it. The menu is tight and rotates with the season — vichyssoise, country pâté, escargot folded in phyllo over mushroom and cognac cream, a lamb shank that customers refused to let leave the menu, plus classic Coquilles Saint-Jacques with soubise, and a Moroccan-influenced poulet marocaine slow-stewed with olives and preserved lemon. A Parisian bistro somehow in an upstate canal town. Eight tables, six seats at the bar. Thu–Sun from 5pm. Reserve ahead.
Chez Pierre chezpierrerestaurant.com · 979 Saratoga Rd, Gansevoort
Out on Route 9 between Saratoga and Glens Falls, Chez Pierre has been doing this for over 60 years and the dining room knows it — white tablecloths, candlelight, the reassuring formality of a French restaurant that doesn't need to explain itself. Veal Oscar, Beef Wellington, Lobster Newburg, Crêpes Suzette. Joe Baldwin learned to cook from an imported French chef after meeting his wife Pierrette in France, and the kitchen still runs on that original intention. Destination dining, not drop-in.
Familiar Creature familiar-creature.com · @familiarcreaturebar · 42 Phila St, Saratoga Springs
The sibling restaurant to Hamlet & Ghost sits on Phila Street in an expansive open dining room and lengthy bar with wines written on the mirrors, a group high top, small tables, velvet booths, or a central partition with seats perfect for ones and twos. The award-winning wine list is curated by wine director, Miles Merton, and it’s the kind of place where one recommended glass easily turns into three. Chef Michele Hunter, a Chopped champion, cooks French and Québécois small plates: Parisian gnocchi made from pâte à choux with black pearl mushrooms and parmesan, a signature roasted chicken, and French cheese and charcuterie boards that soon become a filling meal. Cocktails aren’t to be missed, especially the summertime frozen Aperol Spritz. Tue–Sun from 5pm, walk-ins welcome, summer patio.
Madeline 1982 madeline1982bakeryandrestaurant.com · @madeline1982lg · 2245 US-9, Lake George ·
Marie-Line Alvernhe is from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France, and she built Madeline 1982 in a former gas station, then a Harley dealership on Route 9, as close to a piece of France as Lake George is likely to get. The furniture, the silverware, the recipes all came from her home region. Croissants are laminated over days. Baguettes, pain au chocolat, macarons, and éclairs are out of the oven before sunrise. Breakfast and lunch round things out with crepes, sandwiches, and savory plates, while the name nods to the classic French madeleine.Sun to Wed 7am–4pm, Thu to Sat 7am–8:30pm
HUDSON AREA
Le Perche Bakery & Bar leperchehudson.com · @leperchehudson · 230 Warren St, Hudson ·
The sister restaurant to Swoon Kitchenbar, owned by Jeff and Nina Gimmel with partner and chef John Carr, Le Perche occupies a 19th-century building on Warren Street with a wood-burning brick oven at its core. Carr's menu is French-inspired and locally sourced — baguettes, croissants, kouign-amann, and focaccia from the oven daily; sandwiches on house bread, soups, coq au vin, steak au poivre for lunch. Upstairs, exposed brick, high ceilings, and windows over the main drag make for an airy room available for private events. The bar program covers natural wine, craft cocktails, local cider, and kombucha. Daytime only.
Serre at The Maker
themaker.com/serre · @themakerhudson · 295 Warren St, Hudson
The Maker—an 11-room Michelin Key boutique hotel spread across three connected historic buildings on Warren Street—has always had style. What it lacked was a restaurant with its own identity. Executive chef Jonas Offenbach arrived last summer, fell in love with the glass-paned dining room, and had an idea: give the restaurant its own name, its own identity. Serre (French for greenhouse) opened in April 2026 in the hotel's conservatory, enveloped in greenery, tropical and calm. Offenbach draws on his years in Michelin-starred kitchens in New York City — Contra, Gramercy Tavern, Momofuku Ko — and a self-taught obsession with French technique built from a personal library of over 200 cookbooks. The menu is not defiantly French, but seasonal, precise, locally rooted, with classical French cooking as the organizing principle rather than the destination. Only a few months in, it's already one of the most acclaimed new arrivals in Hudson.
Shadow 66 shadow66.com · @shadow66restaurant · 47 Old Post Rd, Ghent ·
Chef Patrick Jehanno trained under Michel Guérard — one of the founders of nouvelle cuisine — and his father was a chef before him. After nearly a decade running Le Gamin Country in Hudson and 17 restaurants between them, Patrick and his wife Astrid converted a former red barn on a rural stretch of Old Post Road in Ghent into the bistro he'd been building toward his whole career. The barn dining room is a spectacle with a mint Citroën parked in the middle, vintage French motoring memorabilia from the Jehannos' personal collection, a restored soda fountain on the far wall, and zero Wi-Fi by design. The menu spans French bistro classics from onion soup gratinée and escargot in parsley-garlic butter to duck confit with potatoes gratin, beef tartare, filet mignon, and profiteroles for dessert. Astrid runs the front of house with a famously no-nonsense hand. Wed–Sat from 5:30pm. Reserve ahead.
Elsasser's @ 111(formerly Elsasser's Beim 111) elsassers111.com · @elsassers111 · 111 Main St, Greenwich, NY ·
Not strictly French, but the Alsace-Lorraine region sits squarely at the border of French and German cuisine and Elsasser's Alsatian cooking deserves a spot in any French focused list. Chef-owner Chris Bischoff, a trained sommelier with over 30 years in the restaurant industry in Europe and the U.S. built his restaurant in a beautiful old building on Greenwich's Main Street and runs it largely himself, which accounts for both the 5-star rating and the intimacy of the experience. The classic Alsatian flammkuchen (tarte flambée in French) is a thin-crust flatbread topped with crème fraîche, onion, and lardons – a must to share. Pork schnitzel with German potato salad, short rib spätzle, bratwurst, sauerbraten all lean to German roots, but duck confit, pork Cordon Bleu, roast chicken in a French white wine sauce, and a selection of French ciders show off Francophile-style. Curated wines, European beers. Plus, Barry248!Bischoff is as likely to be your server as chef. Small, warm, and worth the drive.Wed to Sat from 5pm.
KINGSTON / ROSENDALE / POUGHKEEPSIE / RHINEBECK
Le Canard Enchaîné le-canardenchaine.com · @officiallecanardenchaine · 276 Fair St, Kingston ·
Chef Jean-Jacques Carquillat was born in Chamonix, trained at Gaston Lenôtre in Paris, worked at Fauchon, La Mirabelle in London, the Ritz-Carlton Lisbon, La Réserve and Le Bernardin in New York — and in 1996 opened this bistro in uptown Kingston with Jennifer Madden, where it has been ever since. "Lift a fork and imagine you're in France," wrote the Times. Garlic snails, duck confit, onion soup voted best in the Hudson Valley. A genuinely classic French bistro, unchanged in the best possible way, with a private dining room for up to 45. Mon, Tue, Thu to Sat lunch and dinner; closed Wed and Sun
Bistrot le Chat Barbu lechatbarbu.com · @le_chat_barbu · 434 Main St, Rosendale · READ MORE
After a decade of private cheffing in New York City, chef-owner Devin Delgado took over the beloved former Rosendale Cafe space in 2024 and turned it into something unique. The Gitane-blue walls and the name — "the bearded cat" — are signs that Delgado doesn't take himself too seriously, but his cooking is precise and imaginative. French technique anchors a broad menu that changes weekly and borrows from former French territories like Vietnam and Senegal, Louisiana and Egypt. Spinach and gruyère croquettes, jambon-beurre on Kingston Bread + Bar baguette, coq au vin jaune made with yellow Jura wine, crème brûlée. No pretense.Wed to Fri 5:30–9pm, Sat 11am–3pm + 5:30–9pm, Sun 11am–3pm + 5–8pm
Brasserie 292 brasserie292.com · @brasserie292 · 292 Main St, Poughkeepsie ·
In a former garment district building on Poughkeepsie's Main Street, this spacious Parisian-style brasserie seats over 80 and sources 90% of its seasonal ingredients from Hudson Valley farms. The room has been retrofitted to feel like something at home in a Parisian arrondissements and the menu follows through with a raw bar, plats du jour, steak frites, and a diverse wine and craft beer list. A reliable, properly executed brasserie experience, and a reason to spend more time in downtown Poughkeepsie than you’d likely expect. Tue–Thu 4–9pm, Fri–Sat 4–9:30pm
Le Petit Bistro lepetitbistro.com · @lepetitbistrorhinebeck · 8 E Market St, Rhinebeck · m
Open since 1986 and founded by John Paul and Yvonne Crozier, Le Petit Bistro is the kind of Rhinebeck institution that a certain kind of person drives two hours for without a second thought. The room has two sides — the old and the new, the new reportedly feeling like SoHo circa 1999 — with a serpentine lilac marble bar where the oyster shucking station holds court. The kitchen does its own butchering, forages locally, and sources produce from the valley. Roast duck, rack of lamb, pork schnitzel, steak frites, veal française, fried oysters; Sunday brunch runs to waffles with foie gras butter and croque monsieur. Forty years in and still the best table in Rhinebeck for a lot of people.Wed to Sat 5–9:30pm, Sun brunch 10:30am–3pm & dinner from 5pm.
EVEN FURTHER AFIELD — Red Hook / Hyde Park
Brigitte Bistro — Red Hook
The Bocuse Restaurant — Hyde Park (CIA)