'Put down your pizza': Bistro Franc, Hanover Street, reviewed

Uniformity is a terrible thing; the notion that you have to buy in wholesale or not at all. Join the club, take the oath, wear the trousers.

For instance, are you really 'an artist' if you don't have some lurid hair colour, Dame Edna glasses and funky therapist jewellery? 

What self-respecting guitar band doesn't have at least one member in a grubby Mac DeMarco panel cap with moustache combo?

Worse still, give a wide berth to anyone who insists in nine-foot neon letters 'I'm a creative'. 

So that's the wardrobe sorted, but what about where to eat? Easy, pizza. The sauce may say Naples but everything else cries Brooklyn. That's right, still. 

But there's so much more out there for the same price, it's just not having its moment in quite the same, seemingly unending way. One time, long ago, la bohème, famished and fashionable, sat in bistros and spent their afternoons soaking a single slice of bread in something delicious. 

Yes it was a long time ago, and yes French places got their own corporate makeover in the last twenty years, but things come full circle.

The issue with the interiors of places like Bistro Franc, and the chains that mimic something similar, is the association. So familiar are my generation (32) with exposed ducting and down-at-heel chic that you assume if there's more than a single pendant light in the place you're paying for it. 

But the difference is often minimal (and besides, those wood fired ovens don't run on good vibes). So if it's going to be £20 anyway, why not branch out, try a few things rather than one and take in some nice wood panelling while you're at it.

Bistro Franc's Prix Fixe menu is simple and straightforward - two small plates and a side for £19.95. While I went for lighter, lunchier options on the petit plats - with accordingly smaller prices - I'd say you could near burgle the place if you were clever about it and hungry enough. Pork belly with black pudding, beef carpaccio, scallops, sea bass. It's pretty much all there should you want it. 

As a sort of starter, I went for mussels with cream and white wine sauce (£8), quite simply a classic. But that's not to say that this dish can't disappoint, because it definitely can. Fortunately for me, this didn't. 

The sauce was very well balanced. There's the earthy, robust base from the abundant shallots, the new depths that are given to a sauce when a decent glug of good quality and well reduced white wine is in amongst it, and the flattening, fattening final addition of cream. Liberal amounts of parsley and you've got something simple but deeply satisfying. I ordered the french fries (£4) with them for soaking up the last. 

A perfect starter for me, it just needs serving in a shallow bowl rather than the literal 'small plate' they came in. No matter, it's about what's in there.

I love a bowl of mussels for main but as a starter they fire up the appetite just enough. On, then, to the honey and red wine glazed pan-fried chorizo served with slices of baguette (£8.50).

If that reads as a bit spartan, it was, but deceptively so. I was slightly greedily considering the camembert with croutes and onion chutney (£9), or the sea bass with leeks and hollandaise (£8) but didn't really want that feeling of being stupidly full at lunchtime. Glazed chorizo in an interesting sauce with some bread to mop up (and the rest of the french fries of course) and I was happy. 

This was the right move. The chorizo was well cooked and crucially not messed about with - after all, enough should have gone into it already in the early stages of curing. That leaves all the creative flair to go into the sauce, which it did. 

Something obviously occurs between the sugars of a good honey and the acids and complex knot of flavours in a decent red wine that makes for something very delicious. It was rich but not vulgar, sweet but not cloying and deep in its flavours, but not so much that you can't see the bottom and wonder where you're heading. 

Yes there was one slice of bread, but just ask for more and they'll happily oblige. The french fries - skin on, well-seasoned and with rosemary - were still hanging around and soaked in the sauce with some chorizo were a great example of how you can enjoy this type of lunchtime meal without any pomp and circumstance.

Steadily making your way through an assortment of these sorts of plates is a deeply pleasurable way to enjoy a lunchtime. It feels closer to how food often should be eaten; at your own pace and as you wish. 

The more popular, and dare I say trendy cuisines right now - Neapolitan pizza, belts of endless sushi, bloody sunday roasts - sometimes start as a delight then quickly become an uphill battle, a gilded cage you have to eat your way out of. 

This is dining as I like it. That was lovely, what's next? Oh that looks good too. Yes another beer, thank you. Relax, you're not on show. No one noticed, or even cares. Very French. 

So put down your pizza, break ranks and try something like the Prix Fixe at Bistro Franc for a change. It's not fancy, it's just good food. Soak it up. 

Bistro Franc, 1 Hanover St, Liverpool L1 3DW

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Bistro Franc is on Confidential Guides

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