December 2024

This French-style chain restaurant is near the National Theatre where we saw a wonderful play, and was recommended by friends who have helped us find things here in London. I think we may have caught the staff on an uncharacteristically busy night.

Our table was right at the entrance with traffic going by and the quite glam looking hostess promised to find us something better. She eventually apologized having forgotten, but in fairness the location wasn’t that bad. We had cocktails which were tasty once we instructed the bartender through the cute server, and we ordered a bottle of Beaujolais (which I mistakenly thought was an off-burgundy) which was a simple gamay.

Starter was a smooth chicken liver parfait, delicious with jam and pickles on a brioche toast. Robin had a steak bavette and mine was duck confit, both respectable but nothing out of the ordinary, and the main course arrived very quickly. The service in general in fact was high-speed and reminiscent of other places we’ve eaten where little is done to hide the priority of turning over the tables. In fairness it was busy, it’s Christmas, and this is London after all. We were comped dessert for our hostess having forgotten to reseat us, and it was a delicious pistachio soufflé with chocolate ice cream.

C$263 with service included and an approximately $75 bottle of wine. Reasonable all things considered. Overall a nice experience, could be better could be worse.

Food 8.2, service 7.9, ambience 8.0, value 7.8, peace and quiet 7.2.