Bistro Lepic is the kind of neighborhood restaurant Parisians are used to on every street corner. The waiter recognizes you if you come more than once. The food is honest and well-priced. And you're not pushed to gobble and go. While many Washingtonians rush to the new crop of French brasseries downtown, Bistro Lepic has been a quiet magnet on Wisconsin Avenue for the past 15 years, drawing those who know that there's more to a French menu than steak frites and mussels done six ways.

"The clientele here travels a lot," says Simon Ndjiki-Nya, Bistro Lepic's chef. He calls his food 'Cuisine de Maman' - 'mother's food'. "For me it's like going into a house where everyone is pleased to see you, to eat good home food."

The Cameroon-born chef came to DC in 2000 after many years of cooking in Paris. He'd grown up helping his mother with the family meals and at 16 entrolled in the prestigious Lycée Hotelier in the French capital. But while he learned everything necessary to enter the hospitality business, he credits Gerard Pangaud, long-time French chef in Washington, for teaching him everything that now most inspires him in the kitchen. "He's a genius. He was born for cooking. He wasn't my boss, he was my mentor. I'd been trained for hotel work. With him, you learned a whole year of refined restaurant gastronomy in one week. He gave me my best moments in the kitchen. He opened up his library to me. And when Bruno Fortin called me to come to Bistro Lepic, he said, Thanks for everything: Go."

Once Ndjiki-Nya was installed in Fortin's kitchen, Pangaud showed up to see how his protégé was doing. "The biggest pleasure he gave me was when he came in, tasted my dishes, and said, I have confidence in you. It was the greatest compliment he could pay me. What I am now is thanks to him."

At 31, after years in some of Paris's best neighborhood restaurants, Ndjiki-Nya set his culinary sights on Washington. He checked out the capital's French restaurants on the internet and came over for an exploratory holiday. He approached the owners of Le Lavandou in Cleveland Park who tested his skills then offered him a three-month trial job. So he turned around to pack up his things and flew right back in. After a stint there, he moved on to work with Pangaud.

Once at Bistro Lepic, he worked alongside owner-chef Bruno Fortin for a couple of years before Fortin took off for Indonesia with his Indonesian wife. They keep in regular touch over the menu and innovations that Ndjiki-Nya has introduced, such as a Business Lunch, and the "Tapas on Toasted French Bread" menu that, happily, he still gives the pungent French nomenclature 'Amuses Gueule' which means 'pleasure the throat' not 'Amuses Bouche' ('pleasure the mouth'), its prosaic replacement. Michel Richard and other local French chefs drop in for 'cuisine maman' dishes like veal kidneys with Yukon gold potatoes and Dijon mustard sauce, and his cassoulet - a slow-braised stew of duck confit, lamb, Toulouse garlic sausage, and canellini beans. Ndjiki-Nya is fond of braises. "People don't like to eat fat or butter. With braises and confits, the fat melts away."

What he'd love to do is run cooking classes out of his kitchen. But there's no time in his busy schedule. You'll be able to catch him teaching, though, through the FreshFarm Market scheme down at the Dupont Circle farmers' market on Sundays.

All through April, Bruno Fortin will be back to cook alongside Njiki-Nya in the kitchen, to celebrate the restaurant's 15 year anniversary.

Bistro Lepic & Winebar, 1736 Wisconsin Ave NW, 202 333 0111.

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