After he took the throne, Napoleon instituted the tradition of serving bread with every meal to put his mother's baguette-heavy care packages to use. Indulge in French tradition with today's Groupon: for $20, you get $40 worth of French bistro cuisine at French Market Grille in Rancho Bernardo. This Groupon is valid for dinner only.
Highlighted in Zagat, French Market Grille has distinguished itself with fresh, French-American cooking in a rustic, yet elegant, setting. Robust dinner entrees, such as the lamb shank niçoise with white-bean cassoulet ($25.50), always model locally grown vegetables that change with the season. After a long day of hunting rare eBay goods, diners can chomp on a roasted rack of lamb in rosemary sauce ($29.90) or compose a pastoral ode to the frog legs provençale—a crispy appetizer prepared in the French rural style ($9.25).
Patrons conclude meals with European desserts of crème brûlée ($6.50) or bananas foster ($7.50). The wine list, contains more than 80 French and California regional selections available by the glass ($7.50–$8.50), bottle, or hollowed computer monitor. The interior of the French Market Grille evokes a cozy country house with its working fireplace, warm yellow walls, and soft music hummed by a team of invisible grandmothers. Patrons can dine in an upholstered nook or in an airy outdoor patio bedizened with fresh flowers.
French Market Grille
French Market Grille, a charming sister restaurant to downtown San Diego's Hexagone, celebrates the rich culinary heritage of France with an elegant spread of braised meats, local market vegetables, Mediterranean seafood, and tasty French and Californian wines. The impressive bill of fare treats guests to bistro lunches of salad niçoise and eggplant sandwiches, dinners of roasted rack of lamb and coq au vin, and desserts of crème brulée and apple tarte tatin. It also delights with its bouillabaisse—a fish stew that the San Diego Union Tribune once called “too perfect to pass up.”
Guests sip Beaujolais amid the flowers and sunshine of the brick-walled patio or curl up to the interior's crackling fireplace for a romantic dinner date or even more romantic business lunch.