Is France ‘back’ or did it never go away? The globally lauded cuisine of our historically antagonistic neighbours was out of vogue for a while there, but it feels like the last couple of years have seen diners reject modernity and embrace tradition in bouchons and bistros that serve big hearty plates of Gallic comfort food. No more tweezers, no more ramen, no more pizzas; it’s lentil ragout season.
Such is the nouveau saturation of these places that you could argue there’s little need for Henri, a Parisian-style bistro attached to Covent Garden’s Henrietta Hotel. It’s helmed by Jackson Boxer, a darling of the St John school of simplicity and chef behind Vauxhall’s much-loved and much-celebrated Brunswick House. The interior, though very nice, is exactly what you’d expect from a ‘bistro’ in a high end boutique hotel; marble-topped tables, ceiling murals, shiny gold candlesticks on every table. You prepare your body for a thoroughly well done but ultimately standard French-with-a-capital-F dining experience. C'est la vie.
Henri reels you in with cocktails named after French culinary legends, then tickles you with something genuinely fun and different
But that isn’t what you’re getting here. Fried pied de cochon (pig’s trotter) is served with bier mustard, and it’s like a tonkatsu cutlet mixed with a spring roll, especially with the unidentified hoisin-esque bead of sauce on top. Sour cream filled seaweed canelés topped with trout roe are quiet and delicate to counter-balance it.
A fully vegan dish of carrot râpée, black olive and sesame cleverly achieved unctuousness without egg, a spooling pile of crunchy orange ribbons that again feels more pan continental than straight-up French. Then a whiplash back to deep Burgundy with soft grilled snails that arrived on an outrageously sticky bed of veal rice.
Surely the bavette steak with a cognac-y peppercorn sauce is going to ground me back in the gouty arrondissements of Paris? Actually, no. Some of the peppercorns are numbing red szechuan, and the cognac infused with fishy XO sauce. The most ‘properly’ French thing on the table is the hanging basket sized bowl of duck fat frites, which came with a perfectly made mushroom-infused hollandaise. It’s a lively and interesting combination that made me perform an irritating, quizzical face with every bite.
A coconut sorbet with English strawberries and a lychee granita cools everything down before the oppressively European royal opera torte looms into view, a thin-but-wide slice of spongy cake topped with a delicious morass of sweet foam.
Are there nitpicks? Sure – the canelé was a little dry, and the tables are so tightly packed that sitting in the middle of a banquette makes you feel like you’re in an escape room every time nature calls. But it’s all by the by, because it feels like Henri is engaging in a cheeky bit of subterfuge. It reels you in with Pinterest-core furnishing and cocktails named after French culinary legends, then tickles you with something genuinely fun and different. It’s a reflection of modern Paris, a place often thwarted by its own monolithic history, that through its contemporary food culture finds ways to sprout new things in the cracks of the marble.
The vibe Candlelit and intimate. Be prepared to hear conversations and have your conversations heard.
The food Bistro-style cooking that isn’t taking itself too seriously, if you can imagine such a thing.
The drink The ‘Eugenie’, a very clean and fresh tequila vermouth cocktail.
Time Out tip The staff at Henri insist on the snails with veal rice for very good reason.