It may be the least arriviste movement of all time. London’s food scene is quietly having a French moment, with a crop of new restaurants taking timeless inspiration from across the channel. This anti-trend manifests itself in summer berry and lavender choux buns at Battersea Rise bistro Ploussard, or Basque chicken ballotine at 64 Goodge Street, another winner in our inaugural 2023 New Restaurant Awards .
It’s there, too, in the classic frog legs at the new Josephine in Chelsea, the veal sweetbreads at Haggerston Wine Club/bistro Planque, or the even more challenging tête de veau calf’s head at Bouchon Racine, chef Henry Harris’s much-loved Farringdon follow-up to his original Racine. If you’ve read a Jay Rayner rave in The Guardian in the last few years, there’s a decent chance it involved some degree of comforting, quality-driven Frenchness. In Covent Garden , chef Jackson Boxer joined this nouvelle vague with the smart, Parisian-inspired Henri at the Henrietta Hotel – owned by the French Experimental Group, and itself part of an influx of Francophile London hotels , including Hôtel Costes relative One Sloane and Notting Hill ’s upcoming Grand Hotel Bellevue.
With its marble-topped tables with coffee-coloured skirts, highlights on Henri’s menu include crispy-unctuous pied de cochon (pig’s trotters), and an £8 carrot râpée with black olive and sesame, cooked in carrot reduction with lime and fermented chillies for an explosive take on the traditional cafe carrot salad. For Boxer, this wider pirouette towards all things Français is multi-faceted. “There is a sense of nostalgia about French food,” says the chef, who masterminded low-key London classics Brunswick House and Orasay before veering French at Cowley Manor Experimental in the Cotswolds .
“To me, it’s family holidays, Interrailing, and really learning to eat in Paris. But while I respect tradition, with Henri we didn’t just want tradition set in aspic, but a familiar framework to seduce, and create something new.” Above all, Boxer says Henri is inspired by a certain restless Parisian spirit.
“Paris to me is an innovative, witty, seething mass of restless creativity and independence, where good small chef-owners can still make it if they’re good enough.” François O’Neill, owner of the beautiful art deco Maison François in St James’s, is more au fait than most with how to make a French restaurant work in London. He grew up doing stints in the kitchen at Brasserie St Quentin, owned by his father Hugh, Lord Rathcavan, and the late restaurant critic Quentin Crewe, who was famed for pioneering the sort of scabrous takedowns that are a common pleasure today (again, see Jay Rayner).
Brasserie St Quentin was London’s first brasserie-style restaurant when it opened in the 1980s – and it became a style-set favourite all over again in 2010, when a 24-year-old O’Neill took it over and rebranded it as The Brompton Bar and Grill. Many of those regulars – think royals , artists and Delevignes – have followed “Frank” to Maison François, which opened in 2021, with Dorchester-trained former MasterChef finalist Matthew Lyle in the kitchen and Scott’s alum Ed Wyand managing a slick front of house team in suits and Stan Smiths. While O’Neill and Lyle did look back at some of the old Brasserie St Quentin crowd-pleasers – including oeuf en gelée, a runny poached egg and ox tongue in aspic – there are also playful remixes, like a Moules Marinière flatbread that essentially mines the best bit (the dipping) of the classic dish.
Bites like the comté gougères are simply an exercise in indulgence. “We are in at the deep end on French food, but we’re playing with the elements while staying true to the basics,” says the ever-erudite O’Neill. “There’s a big focus on our vegetable section, and we’ve lightened parts of the menu to balance the butter, garlic and sauce.
” As at Brasserie St Quentin, and at many of the new French stalwarts in London, there’s a properness at play here; a refusal to cut corners, from the in-house butchery and bakery to the impeccable service that O’Neill says owes a debt to the example of The Wolseley Group’s Chris Corbin and Jeremy King. A Borough Market follow-up, Cafe François is due in the autumn, with more of a canteen/brasserie vibe. There’ll be a deli, bakery and patisserie, and less intimidating prices for dishes including classic omelettes, Quiche Lorraines, Franco-Vietnamese soft shell crab bánh mì and rotisserie poulet frites.
It’ll be the sort of place where, in O’Neill’s words, “the lights never go off”. Vive la rather understated révolution. From the Woodhead group behind Portland, Clipstone and The Quality Chop House, this handsome Fitzrovia dining room is an elegant setting for ex-Portland chef Stuart Andrew’s playful outsider’s take on French cooking – think snails, bacon and garlic bon bons, or Basque chicken ballotine with rich girolles and triangles of fried foie gras toast; the likes of Muscat crème caramel or apricot tarte tatin on an oversized dessert menu, a bit like the Burgundy-leaning wine list.
Address: 64 Goodge Street, London W1T 4NF Website: 64goodgestreet.co.uk In a nostalgic little bistro-curtained space on the edge of Borough Market, and from the team behind Soho’s Ducksoup among others, chef Elliot Hashtroudi fuses the nose-to-tail British cooking he honed at St John and Clapton’s 107 Wine Shop with a regional French sensibility: in slyly creative dishes like smoked eel devilled eggs, beetroot millefeuille and lamb heart with peas and ewe’s curd, as well as regular daily specials.
Address: Camille, 2-3 Stoney Street, London SE1 9AA Website: camillerestaurant.co.uk There’s hardly a purer distillation of the French bistro in London than Josephine – Michelin magnet Claude Bosi and his partner Lucy’s love letter to proper Lyonnaise cooking, in a picture-crammed, dark wood space on the Fulham Road.
Expect richly sauced confit duck leg or veal sweetbreads with morel mushrooms; Saint-Félicien cheese soufflés, Dauphinoise potatoes and Rum baba with vanilla Chantilly cream. Address: Josephine Bouchon, 315A Fulham Road., London SW10 9QH Website: josephinebouchon.
com Robert Reid and JC Slowik – food industry veterans and titular garçons, who met at Marco Pierre White’s Oak Room – are behind this understated Crouch End staple, which moved to a bigger space in 2023. Such was the local demand for this classic bistro menu running from onion soup and chicken liver parfait to steak frites and confit de canard with haricot beans and mushrooms – with tarte fine aux pommes a highlight on a drool-worthy list of desserts and dessert wines. Address: Les 2 Garçons, 14 Middle Lane, London N8 8PL Website: les2garconsbistro.
com François Guerin and Jean-François Lesage, owners of Clerkenwell’s La Petit Ferme, are behind this Maida Vale local bistro, a relative oldie having opened in 2020. The mustard yellow walls and floral wallpaper are as trend-averse as the food – but there’s no arguing with the beef cheek croquettes or beef filet with Bordelaise sauce and some of the best frites in London, which have garnered Paulette a cult following. Address: Paulette, 18 Formosa Street, London W9 1EE Website: paulettelondon.
com Seb Myers, the much-admired Australian alumnus of Chiltern Firehouse and cult Clapton wine bar P. Franco, is in the kitchen at this Haggerston “wine clubhouse”/restaurant. On the one hand, it’s a French- and low intervention-leaning oenophile member’s club ; on the other, it’s an understated railway arch restaurant showcasing Myers’ deceptively creative dishes, from scallop and sea lettuce tartelettes to braised beef tripe and borlotti beans (offal is back, by the way).
Address: Planque, 322-324 Acton Mews, London E8 4EA Website: planque.co.uk Matt Harris and Tommy Kempson opened cult fried chicken restaurant Other Side Fried before turning their Battersea Rise branch into this lovely neighbourhood wine bar/restaurant, with its mid-century-ish plywood panelling, low-intervention wines and light, playful sharing plates: think nectarine gazpacho, shiitake with egg yolk and comte sauce, or exquisite summer berry and lavender choux buns.
Address: Ploussard, 97 St John's Road, London SW11 1QY Website: ploussardlondon.co.uk Chef Henry Harris’s original Racine on Brompton Road was widely adored by London foodies for its loving, uncompromising take on classic French cooking.
This chalkboard second act, in a wood-panelled space above the Three Compasses pub in Farringdon, follows happily where the original left off: a greatest hits of garlicky Escargots à la Bourguignonne, grilled rabbit leg or a wobbly creme caramel with Armagnac prunes alongside that tête de veau calf’s head in a broth and herby sauce ravigote. Address: Bouchon Racine, Upstairs, 66 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6BP Website: bouchonracine.com.
