Wednesday night, I attended a joyless meeting in a windowless room in North Toronto. It was about granting a liquor licence to an ebullient French chef named J.P. Challet and his two partners, who want to open a charmant 22-seat restaurant called Ici in a downtown neighbourhood (mine) that could use and clearly wants it. The sort of boîte you find all over Paris, not just on the entertainment strips, but rarely here: modest, with excellent food and no tablecloths. To perform this public service they must fight City Hall, literally.