Restaurant review, L'Artiste--A New Reason to Visit the Arrondissement of Astoria.

The slogan for French bistro food should be, "Why change it when we got it right the first time?" Indeed, no matter where you go, the menu choices are always the same and probably identical to dishes served 50 years ago. Maybe a hundred. This is not a bad thing, either, since the cult of the new so sways today's food culture. Sometimes you simply want the good old standbys. And luckily the classics really shine at L'Artiste, a recently opened French restaurant in Astoria. You won't mistake the restaurant as being in Paris—the windows in the intimate space look out onto the row houses and squat brick apartment buildings emblematic of Queens. Yet a crock of French onion soup ($8), under a heavy shroud of oozing cheese pocked dark brown, is as good as any version in France.

Read more at http://www.villagevoice.com/