London’s best French restaurants

Bouchon Racine comes with history, baggage and devoted fans, especially of chef Henry Harris. The menu is unashamedly French, with humble roots and an emphasis on hearty food. A ‘bouchon’ is a type of restaurant found in Lyon that historically catered to workers, and remains focused on the idea of relaxed conviviality, which captures Bouchon Racine perfectly. Bouchon Racine’s offerings are written on a blackboard and change often. But there are a number of staples, such as jambon de noir de bigorre, a cured meat from a heritage breed of black pigs near the Pyrénés.

Josephine is a bistro so pitch perfect and so on brand that it could be a movie set – preferably one with Catherine Deneuve flitting about while sweetly sloshing vino. With the storied chef Claude Bosi in charge, here the French flavours are as full-bodied as a ruddy-faced Serge Gainsbourg after a Syrah binge. It self-identifies as a ‘bouchon’ – the name given to French restaurants that serve hearty Lyonnaise cuisine – and dishes span onglet à l’échalote, frogs' legs in garlic butter, cheese soufflé, and an entire section of the menu dedicated to potatoes. Very, very good.  

A teasing shot of warm, villagey France in Bermondsey, this infectiously cosy eatery works to a daily blackboard menu of boldly chosen, smartly executed bourgeois classics scrawled up in the native tongue. There are just three choices per course, but prices are sensible and flavours are true (rillettes de saumon followed by herbed lamb, say). You can even come here for plates of cheese and charcuterie. Either way, you’ll leave feeling oh-so-satisfied.

Big-ticket dining just off Piccadilly Circus, this homage to the grand Parisian brasserie is a huge art deco set-up that attracts all-comers out for a good time. Affordable French staples are the big draw and the set menu is always a winner: think steak haché with frites. Otherwise, dip into the a la carte for steak tartare, meaty platters of choucroute, tarte au citron, plus a surprisingly wide choice of veggie options. There's live jazz too, and the excellent Bar Américain in this subterranean wonderland. 

A loving tribute to la vielle France near Russell Square, Otto Tepasse’s restaurant dishes up fancy food against a charmingly affectionate backdrop of statuettes, vintage lights and velvet banquettes. Pride of place goes to the canard à la presse – a nineteenth-century speciality that involves extracting the juices from the carcass with a special silver press. Alternatively, step back in time for roasted French boudin, frogs legs with snails, or lobster soufflé.    

Located above the French House pub (a die-hard boho Soho watering hole with its own house rules), this teeny dining room is now home to chef Neil Borthwick, who runs the show with considerable brio. Forget artsy flourishes: this is seasonal, gutsy, stripped-back food with proper Gallic overtones – plus brilliant cheeses and desserts.    

From the same minds who brought you Ducksoup in Soho and Little Duck The Picklery in Dalston comes this Borough Market venture with its sights set firmly on France. Camille is unassuming at first, with classic French dishes using local British produce, lots of wine and a packed chalkboard of daily specials. But once you’re a course or two in, windows steamy with condensation and a few glasses deep – perhaps fighting the temptation to run your finger over those last drops of sauce – you might as well be on a backstreet of Montmartre as opposed to Southwark.

Soif is très jolie – the kind of neighbourhood bistro you’d expect in rural France rather than Battersea Rise. There’s also a subtle whiff of mid-century Parisian cool about the place, while the food is a mix of pure-bred charcuterie, deftly cooked Gallic staples (excellent steak frites) and keenly priced rotisserie chicken and chips on Mondays. Soif’s trump card, however, is its huge list of organic and terroir-led natural wines served in delicate glassware.  

Given its Mayfair location, it's no surprise that LPM is on the more spenny side of things. But this glorious, twinkling dining room, with its Riviera-worthy cream pillars and gleaming marble, is home to some seriously flawless French-Mediterranean cooking. Snails with garlic butter and parsley are so good they could convince the mollusk-averse to get stuck in, while yellowtail carpaccio with guacamole and citrus dressing might not be terribly trad, but it is sensational. Old school dishes like canard a l'orange are exquisitely cooked and the dauphinois is one of the best in town. 

Bistro Freddie is a London rarity: a knowingly ‘cool’ vibehouse that doesn’t make you want to dash your brains out on the edge of an understated white table. The spare, paired-back menu features ‘house sausage’, and snails on top of pillowy flatbread, sprinkled with nubbins of crispy chicken skin then bobbing in tarragon butter. Freddie isn’t much like a Parisian bistro, really. It’s too friendly for that. It’s more like Andrew Edmunds in a beret.

Henri is 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. But this isn't trad French cookery, but rather a place reels you in with cocktails named after Gallic culinary legends, then tickles you with something genuinely fun and different like fried pied de cochon (pig’s trotter) served with bier mustard; sour cream filled seaweed canelés topped with trout roe; or bavette steak numbing red szechuan peppercorns.

Bruce Poole’s tastefully stylish gaff may have a Michelin gong to its name, but it’s still Wandsworth’s favourite neighbourhood restaurant – a place where you can enjoy polished French-inspired food without the fawning service or killer prices of some other lauded establishments. Expect big-boned seasonal flavours along the lines of deep-fried calf’s brains with sauce gribiche, morteau sausage and celeriac, backed by a wonderfully whiffy cheeseboard and a stonking 600-bin wine list.

Mon Plaisir is Covent Garden's ultimate French veteran – as Gallic as Gauloises, Jacques Tati and Edif Piaf. Thespians and theatregoers now crowd the place eager for a taste of its nostalgic food – garlicky cassolette d’escargots, tartiflette, beef tartare, and mousse au chocolat. For a charming, old-school fill-up, it’s a pleasure indeed.

Tom Sellers charcoal-hued, marble-clad venue just off Seven Dials is inspired by the rotisseries and brasseries of Paris. Here you’ll find classics like spit-roasted whole chicken, steak with Bernaise sauce, buttered greens, slabs of seasonal terrine and brown sugar bruleé. Sit at the counter to feel the flush of the wood-fired grills and hear the sizzle of chicken skin crisping, as birds rotate on thick metal skewers.

Alongside the sturdy likes of the Quo Vadis and L’Escargot, Kettner’s is one of Soho’s grande dames of gastronomy. Dating back to 1867, this French restaurant was opened by the personal chef to Napoleon III (the one who rebuilt all of Paris). After a brief stint as a Pizza Express, it is once again a bistro, serving the creamiest of cheese soufflés, magenta steak tartare with a side of toasted brioche and steak frites with a punchy béarnaise glowing with tarragon.

Born in Paris back in 1959, this mini chain of no-bookings, no-choice steakhouses knows how to pack ’em in. As always, dinner comprises a dressed green salad with walnut and mustard vinaigrette followed by the signature steak dished up in two whopper servings with divine fries and a secret sauce. Also save room for one of the standout desserts, especially the mindblowing praline ice cream. Cheap house wine is a bonus. 

From the folks behind Casse-Croûte, this quirky restaurant in a mock-Tudor pavilion on the edge of Tanner Street Park is affably French right down to its blackboard Gallic menu and suave staff. Flavours are gutsy, rustic and traditional to the core. Old-school, yes, but immensely comforting.

A bona fide London institution with a new fine-dining powerhouse at the helm, Bibendum remains London’s nattiest and most heart-warmingly pleasurable dining room – although two-Michelin-starred über-chef Claude Bosi (of Hibiscus fame) is putting his own dazzlingly creative French stamp on proceedings. Prices are unnervingly high, but dishes such as venison with pickled walnut and hazelnut are overwhelmingly excellent – so go on, blow the budget.

Famously the first restaurant in London to serve snails (the original owner used to farm them in the basement of this Georgian townhouse), L’Escargot has been a fixture of old Soho since 1927. A favourite of celebs from Coco Chanel to Mick Jagger, it serves up provincial French cuisine of the old school – not just the titular escargots, but also braised lamb, steak with bearnaise sauce, and tarte au citron.

The interior of this solid French bistro is like a French farmhouse by way of a Victorian workhouse: the bare wooden beams and metal pillars are pepped up by nineteenth-century French wine posters and big stoneware flagons saying ‘beaujolais’ or ‘vin blanc’. Expect hearty bourgeois food: soupe de poisson topped with goopy spoonfuls of cheese and garlicky rouille, coq au vin, steak frites, rabbit with mustard sauce – all served by super-attentive staff.