A new French restaurant is coming to St. Paul’s Selby Avenue.

Aubergine, which means eggplant in French, will open late this fall in the former Revival space.

Owners Bjorn and Megan Jacobse, who both previously worked for chef Gavin Kaysen locally, had been living and working in Portland, Ore., for six years before moving back to St. Paul last year with their 2-year-old son, Hugo.

It was in Portland that they honed the idea for Aubergine, hosting a number of successful pop-ups. Bjorn was born in Lyon, France, and lived there for the first four years of his life.

Bjorn and Megan Jacobse of Aubergine, the upcoming French restaurant on Selby Avenue in St. Paul. (Courtesy of Aubergine)

“I was born in France, so French cuisine has always been near and dear to my heart,” he said. “My mom lived there for a while, and she’s fluent in the language. So I grew up hearing stories and eating the food.”

The menu will change with the seasons but will take inspiration from Lyonnaise cuisine.

“It will be focused on French technique, old-world French cooking,” Bjorn Jacobse said. “The menu will be relatively local, focusing on local meat and vegetables, utilizing the whole animal.”

Megan Jacobse, whose experience includes being on the management team at Kaysen’s Spoon and Stable, will run the front of the house. The beverage program will be very wine-focused, she said, and they’ll highlight under-appreciated regions and varietals in the U.S. as well as France, Germany and Italy.

“There’s lots of fun stuff happening in the wine world,” Megan Jacobse said. “We want to focus on some different varietals coming out of regions you wouldn’t expect.”

The pair is significantly changing the layout of the restaurant, which will seat 45 with eight additional bar seats and a flexible private dining area that can accommodate overflow.

And, of course, they’ll use the pretty, shaded patio behind the space in the warmer months.

Christian Dean Architecture has drawn the plans for the new space, and the pair said they took a lot of inspiration from Montreal, where Bjorn worked for a while.

“It will look like a completely different space,” Megan Jacobse said. “We are expanding the kitchen and reworking the bar. There will be elements and touches that make it a warm, welcoming, cozy environment. There’s a similarity in culture and climate between here and Montreal, and there is a warmth and unpretentiousness that we wanted to bring to the space.”

Construction should begin soon, and the pair are hoping for a pre-Thanksgiving opening.

Aubergine: 525 Selby Ave., St. Paul; restaurantaubergine.com

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Mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus have been detected in Anoka and Carver counties, but officials say people shouldn’t be alarmed.

“We have detected West Nile virus … but not to the point where we’re concerned about human transmission,” said Monte Ebbesen, Metropolitan Mosquito Control District public affairs assistant. “This is kind of the normal time of the year where it’s at its peak. We’ll expect some cases, but right now, we’re not concerned.”

She said their agency is working to ensure that the community stays safe.

“It’s all a part of our Integrated Pest Management Program. We treat water-holding areas at the larval stage, and if needed, we’ll do adult treatments — what people call ‘spraying,’” Ebbesen said.

But officials urge that it’s not just up to them; individual action is needed too.

“It’s also on people to take personal responsibility — wear bug spray, dress appropriately, avoid perfume and wear light colors,” she said. “There are ways to avoid getting bitten and lower the risk of transmission.”

Most people infected with the virus show no symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic Health System. When symptoms do appear, individuals may experience fever, headache, body aches, swollen lymph nodes, diarrhea, rash and vomiting.

People with cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure or kidney disease face a higher risk of severe illness associated with the virus. More severe symptoms of the virus include neck stiffness, muscle weakness and paralysis.

Mosquitoes with West Nile are known to linger around swamps and ponds and are most active between dusk and dawn.

In 2022, 22 West Nile cases were reported in Minnesota. The virus first was detected in the state in 2002 and has since become a recurring seasonal concern.

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Many Americans who love Israel are facing a dilemma: Should they visit now, or hold off until times are safer?

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, Israel has been locked in an ongoing conflict with neighboring countries and territories, most prominently in Gaza, where about 50 Israeli hostages remain and more than 50,000 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed, and in Iran, where Israel and the United States launched missile attacks on nuclear sites last month. Israeli air space was subsequently closed to travel until June 24.

Tourism to Israel has suffered, and the continuing hostilities have made many frequent visitors reluctant to make the trip. But despite travelers’ hesitancy, some South Floridians with deep connections to the country say now is an important time to go.

“My first piece of advice is: Go, don’t be afraid,” said Delray Beach resident Katie Colburn, who has visited the country about 20 times, most recently in April. “They need us to come right now.”

Rabbi Josh Broide of Boca Raton Synagogue, who is moving to Israel this summer, said travelers are often in awe of Israelis’ resilience.

“Life goes on and visitors are warmly welcomed,” Broide said. “The best way to support the country is to be there — to see it, to stand with it and to experience its strength firsthand.”

There are many experts and travel veterans to consult if you are considering a trip, including your family, tour leaders, Israelis you know and the U.S. Department of State. If you are ready to commit, here are some tips from South Florida travelers and the State Department to help with a smooth visit.

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

Check advisories. The U.S. Department of State provides updates on conditions on the ground. As of July 1, the current advisory says Americans should “reconsider” travel to Israel and the West Bank. The statement warns Americans to stay at least 7 miles from Gaza, 2.5 miles from the Syrian and Lebanese borders, and 1.5 miles from the Egyptian border, except for the Taba crossing between Egypt and Israel, which is open. Go to travel.state.gov.

Don’t forget your ETA-IL. For the past year, American visitors have had to get an Electronic Travel Authorization to enter the country. You’ll have to answer a few questions online about your passport and the purpose of your visit. The ETA lets visitors stay in Israel for 90 days and costs about $7. Go to www.gov.il/en/departments/topics/eta-il.

Enroll in STEP. The free Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, sponsored by the U.S. State Department, allows the U.S. Embassy to keep in touch and send weather and security alerts. You can also share your itinerary so its staff can find you in an emergency. Go to mytravel.state.gov/s/step.

Download the Israel Home Front Command app. This app will send alerts targeted to your location during emergencies. It also allows users to contact the Home Front Command, the Israel Defense Forces’ civil defense unit.

Wherever you’re staying, ask where the closest secured spaces are and find them before going to bed. Traveler Katie Colburn said she heard sirens while she and her husband, David, were sleeping at their hotel in Jerusalem, but they stayed in their room. They weren’t sure what the protocol was. The Israeli government advises tourists and citizens to head for a shelter or safe room when they hear these alarms, which warn of immediate danger.

Know where the closest shelters are if you are out and about. Rabbi Leon Weissberg said there are signs in public places throughout the country directing people to shelters. “You’ll see security everywhere, you’ll see arrows to shelters everywhere,” said the Cooper City resident, who visited in April. “The signs are so prominent now, and they’re in English, Hebrew and Arabic.” The sirens give a 1.5-minute warning of a missile or rocket attack in the central part of the country; times in other areas vary from 3 minutes to “15 seconds or less.”

Stay away from large public assemblies. The U.S. Embassy recommends American visitors steer clear of protests and areas with a large police presence. “Avoid demonstrations and crowds,” the embassy said in a July 1 alert.

Find a professional guide or go with a group if you want to see kibbutzes in the south that were affected by the Oct. 7 raids. “Go with a good guide who can give context and meaning,” Rabbi Broide said. Check in advance to see whether the kibbutz you wish to visit is open; some remain evacuated and closed to tourists.

“Write what you know” only gets you so far. An awful lot of debut films, even from writer-directors with talent, start from a personal place only to end up at a weirdly impersonal “universal” one you don’t fully believe, or trust.

“Sorry, Baby” is so, so much better than that. Eva Victor’s first feature as writer-director, and star, feels like a lived experience, examined, cross-examined, ruminated over, carefully shaped and considered.

Its tone is unexpected, predominantly but not cynically comic. The movie doesn’t settle for “write what you know.” Victor followed a tougher, more challenging internal directive: Write what you need to find out about what you know.

The story deals with a college sexual assault, without being “about” that, or only about that. “Sorry, Baby” concerns how Agnes, the sharp-witted protagonist played by Victor, makes sense of her present tense, several years after she was mentored, then raped, by her favorite professor, with the bad thing now in the past but hardly out of sight, or mind.

Victor arranges the telling non-chronologically, which keeps this liquid notion of past and present flowing as a complicated emotional state. When “Sorry, Baby” begins, Agnes is thriving as an English literature professor at the same tiny New England college she attended as a graduate student. She now lives near campus with her cat in a somewhat remote old house, crammed with books. Lydie, Agnes’s good friend from grad school played by the superb Naomi Ackie, has come for a visit, and the magical rightness of the interplay between Victor and Ackie gives the film a warm, energizing hum.

At one point, Lydie asks her if she leaves the house much. Agnes responds verbally, but her body language, her evasive eyes and other “tells” have their own say. Lydie’s question lingers in the air, just before we’re taken back to Agnes and Lydie’s grad school years for the film’s next chapter.

Here we see Agnes on the cusp of her future, surrounded by ideas and novels and opinions, as well as an envious fellow student (Kelly McCormack, a touch broad as written and played in the film’s one tonal misjudgment). Agnes’ writing has attracted the attention of the campus conversation topic Decker (Louis Cancelmi), a faculty member with a faulty marriage and a barely-read but undeniably published novel Agnes admires. The admiration is mutual, even if the power dynamic is not.

At the last minute, the teacher reschedules his meeting with Agnes to take place at his house near campus. We see Agnes arrive, be greeted at the door and go inside. The camera stays outside, down the steps and by the sidewalk, for an unusually long time. Finally she tumbles, more or less, back out on the porch; it’s getting dark by this time; Decker appears in the doorway, trying to apologize, sort of? Kind of?  And the scene is over.

Only later do we learn some unnerving particulars of what happened to Agnes, once she is ready, finally, to talk about it with Lydie. “Sorry, Baby,” as Victor said in one post-screening discussion, began with the notion of how to film the assault — meaning, what not to show. “In real life,” the filmmaker said, “we don’t get to be behind the door. We hear what happened and we believe people. (And) we don’t need to be inside to know.”

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From there, “Sorry, Baby” continues its flow back and forth, in the years in between what happened and where Agnes is now. There’s an eccentric neighbor (Lucas Hedges, unerring) who initially appears to be call-the-police material, but it doesn’t work out that way at all. Lifelines can come from anywhere, Agnes learns, and expressing oneself honestly and directly is easier said than done.

Throughout this precisely written film, we see and hear Agnes caught in weird language-built labyrinths as she squares off with the college’s HR department while attempting to file a report against the professor, or — much later — Agnes at jury duty selection for an unrelated matter, explaining the incident in her past to her questioner in weirdly funny ways. Victor’s a tightrope-walker in these scenes; “Sorry, Baby” is as much about everyone around Agnes, performing their understanding, or concern, regarding the Bad Thing in her past.

Some of the more overt bits of bleak comedy are better finessed than others, and you wouldn’t mind another five or 10 minutes of hangout time, complementing the well-paced overall structure. But even that’s a sign of success. How many standout movies have you seen this year that made you think, you know, that actually could’ve been a little longer? Clear-eyed, disarming and, yes, plainly semi-autobiographical, “Sorry, Baby” takes every right turn in making Agnes far more than a tragic yet wisecracking victim, with a smiling-through-tears ending waiting around the bend. She’s just living her full, up-and-down-and-up life, acknowledging the weight of that life without solving or dissolving the bad thing.

This is Victor’s achievement, too, of course. Already, this quietly spectacular first-time filmmaker’s promise has been fulfilled.

“Sorry, Baby” — 3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for sexual content and language)

Running time: 1:44

How to watch: Premieres in theaters July 4

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.