This has been a weird year for the French-restaurant community. It began with all that Freedom Fries nonsense, followed by a wildly unsuccessful attempted boycott of all things French by a bunch of jingoistic ideologues. And then, in the midst of that, Denver and Boulder saw a sudden, inexplicable resurgence in French dining with several bistros, cafes and brasseries opening one right after another. Best among them -- best among both old and new -- is Brasserie Rouge, whose owners went to obsessive lengths to create a spot that, in their dedication to an atom-by-atom reconstruction of an honest French brasserie, is more real than the real thing. This restaurant faithfully mimics the best aspects of the brasserie in both its kitchen and dining room. From the butcher's paper tablecloths to the servers with French-as-a-second-language accents to the real duck confit, excellent bouillabaisse and true charcuterie coming from the galley, Rouge deserves a prize not just for being the best French restaurant in town, but for bringing a little bit of the City of Lights to our own Queen City of the Plains.