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Start a Top 5 for FrenchEditor’s picks
Press picks, until locals rank their own Top 5s. Sourced from the local food press. As seen in Axios Charlotte and Charlotte Magazine. Updated August 2026.
Coquette · Uptown
A French restaurant, cafe and buvette that has drawn Uptown since 2023 and reopened in March 2026 in a larger room at 101 South Tryon Street, across from McColl Park. Steak frites, moules and a raw bar anchor the menu, and the buvette side keeps it usable for a glass of wine and nothing else.
The Fig Tree Restaurant · Elizabeth
Sara and Greg Zanitsch opened in the 1913 Lucas House at 1601 East Seventh Street in 2005 and marked twenty years in 2025. The elk chop with horseradish spaetzle is the signature, the wine list runs deep, and the house itself does as much work as the kitchen on an anniversary dinner.
Cafe Monte French Bakery and Bistro · SouthPark
Monte Smith's bistro at 6700 Fairview Road has been open since 2007, running a full pastry case up front and duck confit, trout amandine and quiche in the dining room behind it. It works for a croissant at eight in the morning and for a long dinner, which is rarer than it sounds.
La Belle Helene · Uptown
A 166-seat brasserie at 300 South Tryon Street with a soaring room, a long bar and a scale Uptown rarely gives a restaurant. Escargot, ratatouille and rotisserie chicken carry the menu, and the 5th Street Group reopened it in 2021 without stripping out what made the room work in the first place.
SORA · Myers Park
A tasting-menu room behind an unmarked door at 2907 Selwyn Avenue, where chef Tshering Dorji builds eight to ten seasonal courses around a glowing chef's counter. The cooking runs French through a Japanese lens, the seats are few, and the whole thing is designed to be watched as closely as it is eaten.