By Paul Reidinger

OPENING A RESTAURANT in Noe Valley is, in a way, like trying to buy a gift for the man (or woman) who already has everything. The task is to find some overlooked lacuna and fill it. Hence Le Zinc, which recently opened on 24th Street as the only French bistro for many, many blocks – a bistro, moreover, that more nearly resembles a genuine Parisian tabac in its early-morning to late-evening hours.

It's a nice idea. And the Zinc people have taken considerable pains to ensure that their restaurant, at least in its interior design, casts a Gallic spell. The wood-framed, floor-to-ceiling windows on the street frontage help, as do the long pewter barq and, just behind it, the grottolike wine cellar. There are little chalkboards here and there on which the day's specials are noted – in French, of course.

So far so good. The building is convincing, not least in its details. The stage is set – for the human element, the intricate, unobtrusive ballet that brings first-rate food to diners, anticipates their needs, makes them feel welcome and looked after, makes them want to come back. The French, for all their supposed snootiness, dance this ballet better than anyone else in the world. The Zinc folks, by contrast, do not even seem to recognize that there's a ballet to be danced. The food is bad, the service is befuddled, and – worst, worst of all – the hosting is passive-aggressive beyond the point of rudeness. It's as if the staff from top to bottom are determined to act out some hostile farce that captures the full measure of (mythical) French condescension without any of the (actual) competence.

When the host declines to meet your eye – is too busy yapping with a table of friends to keep watch over the dining room; to notice, for instance, that a certain table has been waiting more than 40 minutes without explanation for its dinner – it is not really surprising that the rest of the staff are equally, determinedly inattentive. They're just taking their cues from above. Of course, Le Zinc is new, and it's always tough to open a place, especially in times like these. But all the more reason for leaders to lead: to smile, put out potential fires, pay attention. If they don't, the people who work under them won't either. And they don't at Le Zinc.

We were brought bread, but no plates from which to eat it. We had to ask repeatedly for water. After being brought a glass of wine and a beer, we were never offered anything else. I don't like it when restaurants push drink, but barest courtesy suggests that you at least ask if your guests would like something else before whisking away the stemware. I kept looking at the sullen bartender four feet directly in front of me, but with almost superhuman stubbornness she refused to meet my gaze. Besides her, there was no one at all at the bar, and why was I not surprised?

Alcohol is a moneymaker in most restaurants, but perhaps Le Zinc doesn't need that money, overcharging as it does for food that is frequently dreadful. At dinner you choose a first and a main course for $30; dessert brings the total to $35. That $30 bought me a bowl of pureed chickpea soup, in which improbably floated two oily sardine halves, and a piece of pork loin wrapped in pastry and served over shaved fennel with honey sauce. In far better restaurants than Le Zinc, that package would have run to quite a bit less than $20 – and perhaps in those places the pork wouldn't have been hideously overroasted to dry, chewy tastelessness. "Shoe leather," isn't that the cliché so often used to describe meat ruined by overcooking?

At lunch a "tartine" ($8) turned out to be a slice of cold bread with a few paper-thin slices of coppa laid over the top – the kind of thing a desperate middle school boy, left to fend for himself, might throw together. A serviceable bowl of cream-of-celery soup cost $7; a green salad dressed with a simple vinaigrette was $5.50. A potato, onion, and red pepper omelette ($6.50) was good. We asked for bread – all the tables around us had bread – and were served water, despite having already ordered a bottle of Badoit.

To be fair, some of the dishes emerging from the kitchen are quite tasty. We found a small plate of duck carpaccio (part of the prix fixe), sprinkled with coriander and cilantro, to strike a skillful balance between the rich meat and the nip and bite of the herbs. My friend liked his pigeon d'hiver (also prix fixe) – roasted squab served on a bed of basmati rice with its own jus – better than I did (I detected mainly gaminess), but on the other hand, I loved his dessert more than he did. That would be the concorde, a napoleon-like layering of chocolate meringue and matchlessly buttery chocolate gâteau.

For a moment, and against all hope, I found something agreeable about Le Zinc. But I doubt that the host or any of her staff noticed it, any more than they noticed my many moments of despair.