Please note, Gastro is now closed. Time Out Food & Drink Editors.
If you want somewhere more French, take the Eurostar. Everything – the dark interior; the classic cuisine; the smouldering, shrugging staff – is straight out of central casting and gloriously, uninhibitedly Gallic. Such bustling brasseries used to be all over France, places to eat croissants before work, or steak frites before visiting the cinema opposite. The cooking makes no concessions: start with snails, moules, fruits de mer or a chèvre salad; follow with bavette steak, andouillette sausages, magret de canard, salade niçoise or a lobster whisked straight from the tank. The menu enfant does indeed feature steak haché or escalope volaille; desserts bring you mont blanc and crème caramel – or maybe strong cheeses from the mesh box on the zinc bar. Spread across the two dark rooms are rickety tables (and a very large communal one), the lobsters in their tank (and their plastic brethren on the ceiling), French adverts on the walls, and a phalanx of strong liqueurs behind the bar. OK, the chips were lukewarm on our visit, and the salade verte rather gritty; but grilled entrecôte was done to a turn, and a lovely syrah house wine came in a Duralex glass. Vegetarians can, it seems, eat frites.