Latest features Where Parisians eat in London

Date Published:

19/11/2007

When Parisians come to London, they want a quintessentially English experience. They don't want brasseries and bistros - they can get superior versions of those at home. Instead, here are a few top-class British restaurants

Bumpkin

209 Westbourne Park Road, London. 020 7243 9818, www.bumpkinuk.com

Bumpkin, which has been going since the middle of 2006, is a place that both locals and tourists enjoy visiting. The atmosphere is part English country house, part welcoming local pub, with enough oddities strewn around the three main floors to ensure talking points for a visit - check out the attic room for backgammon and poker tables, amongst other things.

The menu and wine list continue the British theme, with reasonably priced regulars including sausage and mash, pies of various shapes and sizes and sustainably caught fish, such as beer battered Pollock and organic Scottish salmon. The highlight of the wine list is arguably the brilliant Chapel Down Bacchus white, a wine from Kent which is so sensational as to make any Gallic visitor temporarily doubt their country's stranglehold on European viticulture.

Rules

35 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London. 020 7836 5314, www.rules.co.uk

The oldest surviving restaurant in London (dating from 1798, by their own accounts), Rules should by rights be an appallingly tacky tourist destination, full of ye olde worlde accoutrements and worn-out knick knacks. Thankfully, it isn't, perhaps because its family-run ethos has ensured a consistent degree of quality. Instead, it is one of London's best destinations for traditional game, specialising in such favourites as grouse, deer and hare, many of which are seldom found in large restaurants. There's an intentionally old-fashioned feel to the ambience here (the dress code specifies sternly 'no shorts') which nevertheless seems entirely suited to the bygone age so charmingly conjured up. Even the full-size mural of a victorious Margaret Thatcher after the Falklands can be forgiven.

Other popular places

St John, 26 St John St, London. 020 7251 0848, www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk
The place that made eating offal fashionable, this unapologetically English establishment specialises in delicious obscurities that would never have made it over the Channel, such as braised faggot and swede and Eccles cake and Lancashire cheese.

Tom's Kitchen, 27 Cale Street, London. 020 7349 0202, www.tomskitchen.co.uk
Tom Aikens' accessibly priced British restaurant serves such delights as deep-fried pigs' ears and Kentish veal.

Veeraswamy, 99 Regent Street, London. 020 7734 1401, www.veeraswamy.com
London's oldest Indian restaurant, first established in 1926, has an old-school charm and atmosphere missing from many other establishments.