Close your eyes and think of Harbord Street. Now try to name every restaurant between Spadina and Bathurst. I set myself the task the other day while lunching alone at Loire, the latest addition to the area, and I couldn’t do it. There are too many—and too many good ones. In terms of the number of gastronomical opportunities, Loire takes Harbord past the tipping point—it’s now the city’s most interesting restaurant strip, encompassing the grandeur of Splendido, the unpretentious late-night slices of Pizza Gigi and examples of every culinary level in between.

Lunch was excellent, incidentally. First-time owners, chef Jean-Charles Dupoire and sommelier Sylvain Brissonnet, both 35, have done a tasteful job renovating Olive and Lemon’s old premises. Daylight pours in through the huge front window onto black banquettes and simple wooden tables. Floral wands and fronds spike up from elegant glass vases along one wall; on the other hangs an almost-kitsch painting of a rural stretch of the eponymous river. It put me in an ichthyophagous mood that could only be satisfied with a platter of briny, sweet-fleshed Lamèque oysters (daintily posed on a bed of pebbles and seashells) and a glass of Vouvray. Then a dish of plump, meltingly tender steamed mussels in a lemon grass, ginger and coconut broth, crowned with a tangle of finely julienned peppers, carrot and bean sprouts. And then a pan-seared dorado fillet with roasted fennel and crumbled chorizo vinaigrette. At which point I sat back contentedly, finally able to take in my fellow customers—mostly university types and local ladies, all looking as satisfied as I felt.

Unlike their somewhat abrasive predecessor, Brissonnet and Dupoire managed to woo the neighbourhood even before they opened last November by giving out soup on the sidewalk during the local pumpkin festival. The neighbours, in turn, asked them home for cookies and tea. Despite their vast expertise (Dupoire was chef at Epic in the Fairmont Royal York for seven years; Brissonnet was sommelier and food and beverage manager of Langdon Hall for almost a decade), they lack any grandiloquent attitude, offering a calm ambience and friendly welcome.

My one slight (and perhaps unjust) disappointment is how rarely the menu refers to the actual Loire or the food to be found on its banks. Dupoire and Brissonnet grew up on the same street in Tours, but aside from Saint-Maure goat cheese on a salad and fabulous rillettes on the charcuterie plate, there are no Tourangelle dishes to be seen—no pike quenelles or eels stewed in red wine, no soup of salt pork and vege­tables. That’s not the way Dupoire cooks these days. A chef who is light on his culinary feet, he has learned from Toronto and revels in the city’s multicultural palate. Hence the Thai flavours with those delectable mussels or the yellow curry sauce for a cauliflower and potato ragoût that he pairs with his roasted monkfish; and the unabashedly North American barbecue sauce that glazes his juicy frogs’ legs, almost turning them into chicken wings.

Almost, but not quite. Loire’s roots are still decidedly French. It could even be called a bistro given the sensible size of its menu and wine list and the charming prices (no dish over $26). Brissonnet and Dupoire had a long debate but ultimately decided against using the B word, partly because it’s so laden with preconceptions and also to sidestep overt competition with nearby Tati Bistro. “Casual gourmet” is the term they have etched on the glass front door, a coinage that allows the kitchen its liberty and suits the idiosyncratic nature of Harbord Street’s culinary culture. Loire fits in nicely. It also takes its place in that other community, the varied coterie of French restaurants in the city. Even more significantly, Loire joins a growing group of establishments that are beginning to give Toronto something it has never had: a culinary identity of its own.

Everyone (except a handful of Italians) agrees that French cooking was both the foundation and the pinnacle of western gastronomy for almost 200 years. The French wrote the rule book and provided the teachers—as they were always quick to remind us. Here in Toronto, they dominated fine dining until the mid-1980s, when the whole city collapsed with enormous relief into the arms of a more relaxed Cal-Ital ethos provided by Franco Prevedello and his army of imitators. Since then, fashion’s carousel has been spinning faster and faster, the ups and downs becoming more exaggerated, and French restaurants have had a bumpy ride. At times, they seemed to form an obsolete ethnic genre, but whenever they reach the brink of extinction, some champion comes along like Joan of Arc to remind us how good French food can be.

What is a French restaurant, anyway? Cross over Harbord Street and peer into Tati Bistro. Chef-patron Laurent Brion’s place would snuggle comfortably into anyone’s definition. It’s candlelit and convivial, with blackboards on the walls listing cheeses or a featured wine. The bread is a crusty baguette, and there’s bavette frites and profiteroles on the $25 three-course prix fixe. I wasn’t crazy about the food when Tati opened in late 2007, but I’m glad I went back. The kitchen has found its feet, cooking credible versions of classic bistro dishes and occasionally sending out something really good, like the lemon tart of tangy, billowy curd in a soft pastry shell.

Tati is so mainstream Gallic it flirts with cliché, but the city’s most renowned French chefs steer far less predictable courses. Marc Thuet of Bite Me and Didier Leroy of Didier both produce outstanding food that is profoundly français but is as temperamentally different as the chefs themselves. Thuet’s restaurant has been through umpteen changes since opening in 2005, each one making the room progressively cozier. Bite Me’s menu has responded to the economy by dropping most prices—appetizers under $17, mains under $30—though Thuet’s “vintages” dishes, such as pig’s trotters stuffed with foie gras, break the rule, and the wine list remains offensively top-heavy, with hardly anything under $65.