Many people think of French food as being rich and using lots of cream, butter and thick, syrupy reductions. That can be true, and once in a while, that kind of meal is satisfying. Now, though, many of the younger French chefs - or rather, chefs making French cuisine - are rejecting stuffy haute cuisine restaurants in favour of opening more casual spots where they prepare lighter food using international ingredients and cooking techniques.

"Bistronomy," Katrina Meynink writes, "is the food without the pomp and circumstance. It is a growing culinary culture that celebrates integrity, simplicity and democracy in dining … It is a food approach based on building a direct relationship between garden, kitchen and diner, with a real sense of place, produce and the wine that might be drunk alongside. It is a combination of bistro (a nod to the traditional dishes that form the starting point for many bistronomy chefs) and gastronomy (a reference to the haute cuisine techniques used to update them).

"Bistronomy is an elusive style of dining: the sort of laid-back eating experience that offers the gustatory nirvana without the buttock-clenching, wallet-evacuating price tag penance."