In Bankers HIll, Hexagone French Cuisine now occupies the corner of Fifth and Laurel in the old Gemelli spot.  Hexagone is the newest addition to French Market Grille up in Rancho Bernardo.  The new place  features everything from salad niçoise ($13.75) and onion soup grantinée ($6.50) to traditional coq au vin ($17.50) and sea bass with corn risotto and fennel-vanilla sauce ($22.50).  I haven’t eaten at either spot yet.  And if you’re wondering (as I did) what a hexagon has to do with French cuisine, it’s the term the French use  when talking about the shape of their country.  Hexagone French Cuisine, 495 Laurel Street, Bankers Hill, 619-236-0467.  Open daily from 11am.

For fabulous and very French desserts and chocolates,  Mille Feuille is your place at the corner of University and Fifth.   Executive pastry chef Thomas Gèrard,  comes from  La Valencia in La Jolla, and being French knows his pastries.  I’ve tasted a few:  Opera (light coffee sponge cake, chocolate ganache and coffee butter cream, $6.50), apricot summer (coconut-pineapple and carrot sponge cake layered with orange-apricot cream cheese filling, $5.50) and lots more including a caramelized onion and cheese quiche ($5.50) and  macaroons almost as ethereal as those found in Pierre Hermé’s Paris shop.  For lunch there are sandwiches and from 2 pm to 4pm there’s high tea for $20.  Mille Feuille, 3896 Fifth Ave., Hillcrest, 619-295-5232.

Barely two years old, Rannoosh the Middle Eastern restaurant next door to Mille Feuille, is closed.

Downtown has a new chic dining room:  Crescent Heights Kitchen & Lounge at the corner of India Street and Broadway.  The contemporary room (designed by the same firm that did Blanca in Solana Beach) matches the modern American menu that features mussels with flavored chorizo in an addictive broth, lovely charcuterie and cheese plates (and you can choose your meats and cheeses), along with Parmesan fries, skinny onion rings, sliders and lots more.  Three of us sampled most of the above on a quiet Saturday night…We’d all go back.  Open for lunch and dinner, closed Sunday.  655 West Broadway, 619-450-6450.

Arterra’s general manager, Tom Mastricola moves on for an, as yet, undetermined location.  Sara Hanson moves from The Pearl to take Tom’s place.

Up in Hillcrest, The Better Half can help get over the shock of the stock market drop and still eat well with a three-course dinner for just $15.  Called the “Stressed Economy Blue Plate Special” the dinners are available from 5 to 7 pm daily.  You can choose flat-iron steak, snapper, wild game meatloaf or pasta, along with soup or salad and, of course, dessert.  Pretty damn good deal at a place with a wonderful selection of half-bottle wines. 127 University Ave., Hllcrest, 619-543-9340.

Blue Boheme in Kensington will preview their Papa Nanou menu (even though the restaurant is not yet ready) on October 19.  It’s a prix-fixe menu for $48 and reservations can be made online or at 619-255-4167.

There’s a shakeup in the kitchen at the Ivy Hotel. Executive chef Damon Gordon moves on at the end of the month for a likely gig back on the east coast at another upscale hotel.  No word who will step into Gordon’s position.

In these tough economic times, we hope it isn’t true:  Could it be that a supper club in Bankers HIll  might be on the selling block?  Readers to this blog wonder if another restaurant/club near Symphony Hall may not be faring so well.  Up in Hillcrest, a reader wonders about a wine bar that may also be on the ropes.  Stay tuned.