À table, deuxième service

L'entrée is the first course. The thing that lets you into the meal. Le plat is what English calls the main.

This catches American speakers hardest, because in the United States entrée drifted to mean the main course, which is precisely backwards. Order confidently in France and you may find yourself with two starters and no dinner.

The running order

1. L'apéritif, a drink and something small, before you sit
2. L'entrée, the starter
3. Le plat, the main
4. Le fromage, cheese
5. Le dessert

Cheese comes before dessert. This matters more than it sounds; offering cheese after something sweet looks distinctly odd at a French table, and the order is not treated as a matter of taste.

Le menu is not the menu

La carte is the list of dishes. Le menu is a set deal at a fixed price, usually two or three courses. Le menu du jour is the day's version, generally the best value in the building.

Asking for le menu when you wanted la carte is one of the most common small confusions in a French restaurant, and it is entirely reciprocal: the waiter thinks you are asking about the set price.

Words that look like other words

Le plat is a dish, both the object and the course. It is also an adjective meaning flat, which is the same idea underneath. Le goût is taste in both the sensation and the aesthetic sense.

Le poisson is fish and la boisson is a drink, and one letter separates them. Ordering a poisson when you wanted a boisson is a rite of passage.

Bread has no plate

Bread goes directly on the tablecloth beside your plate, not on a side plate, which French tables generally do not have. You tear it rather than cutting it, and you use it to push food and mop sauce, which in France is good manners rather than bad.