A two-story plunge into French-colonial romance in the River Oaks District — rattan, palms, slow ceiling fans, and a wraparound terrace that turns dinner into a period film. Le Colonial trades in elevated, chef-driven Vietnamese cooking (the concept built on cookbook author Nicole Routhier's authority) with a French accent: shaking beef, seared yellowtail, lemongrass seabass, and a cocktail program of tropical mezcal and tamarind-scotch riffs. The food can play second to the atmosphere, but the atmosphere is the point — one of Houston's most transporting rooms.