French
This is the London restaurant for Daniel Humm, whose Eleven Madison Park restaurant has reached number 1 on the World's 5- Best Restaurants list. This sees him in charge of the main restaurant at Claridges with a main fine dining menu - but also snacks at the bar.
Louie is a venture from the Paris Society, which has several big restaurants in Paris and they've brought similar opulence to London. For this restaurant, they've teamed up with American chef Slade Rushing who's brought in a taste of the Deep South.
Critic reviews - total score 6.5 out of 10
This is from Corbin and King, the team behind The Wolseley, Bellanger, The Delaunay and more. This time it is an all-day restaurant serving French food with Russian influences.
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
This is the second restaurant from Leonid Shutov - who brought us the wonderful Bob Bob Ricard. His City restaurant has been a long time in the making, and the £25 mil spent on it really shows. Expect opulence - and the press for Champagne buttons too.
Run by the Raclette brothers, this shipping container in the middle of Pop Brixton offers up a short, seasonally changing menu. Melted raclette is scraped at your table on to potatoes, pickles and crispy pancetta and there's also tartiflette with wild mushroom and gungy rebloucon, fondue with a choice of either gruyere or Lincolnshire poacher and more. Let's face it, you aren’t going to walk away hungry. All that and an informed wine list too.
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
The French House is mainly known as a classic Soho pub - but it also has a dining room upstairs. It's a small affair - it almost feels like a private dining room - but it's hosted some great names. Currently, it's home to ex-Merchants Tavern chef Neil Borthwick who's cooking up French classics.
Ansel is best known as the inventor of the cronut - which caused huge queues at the original New York location. This is his first London bakery and yes, there are plenty of cronuts on offer. But there's much more besides, serving up some of the most unique cakes, pastries and sweets in town.
Chef Richard Wilkins (ex-Petrus and Waterside Inn) has moved into West London to open his solo venture, on the old Marianne site, serving up a modern French fine dining menu.
Critic reviews - total score 2.5 out of 10
With restaurants in all the key globetrotting hotspots - NYC, Miami, Dubai etc - a London branch was way overdue for this upscale international chain.
Mon Plasir is billed as London's "oldest French restaurant" - with its current owners keeping it in the family since the 1940s. As you might imagine from such a traditional establishment this does the classic dishes very well.
Coq D'Argent is a restaurant by D&D serving up classic French cuisine. It's a classic City restaurant, over 20 years old, with a prime place at the top of 1 Poultry and with an impressive outside rooftop bar space too.
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
One of the jewels in the crown of the D&D restaurant empire, The Orrery offers classic French food in a rather opulent first floor dining room. If you're in Marylebone and in need of cosseting, this is the place to go. Just don't forget to order the cheese trolley.
Nearly 150 years ago, Auguste Kettner opened Kettner’s, which was one of the first restaurants in London to serve French food. Now after a brief lull, it’s reopened with more French food, bath loads of Champagne and looking more gorgeous than ever. Eyes peeled for the stunning 18th century spiral staircase...
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
This classic French institution has been in Soho for more than 100 years, serving up classic French cuisine. And, as you can imagine from the name, it serves the very best snails in London. A wonderful institution that still has great life in it.
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
This Bermondsey restaurant comes from Hervé Durochat, the man behind another restaurant in Bermondsey, the ever popular Casse Croute. Here alongside a small selection of French dishes, the star attraction is the chicken - or the Poulet de Bresse to be precise.
Pied a Terre's GM heads out on his own with this neighbourhood spot where it's all about ultra personal treatment and giving the customer what they really want. Expect classic French food.
After enjoying Michelin-starred success in Hong Kong, two of the chefs behind Serge et Le Phoque have brought their ingredient-led French cuisine to London.
Critic reviews - total score 9 out of 10
Owners David Gingell and Jeremie Cometto-Lingenheim also run nearby Primeur and Jolene, both also excellent. Here, there's a distinct focus on seafood and the menu changes every day, although if the cuttlefish croquettes with aioli are on there, make sure you order those. In the summertime, you can take a glass of something cold out on the front courtyard and if you're really pushing the boat out, ask for the leather-bound, handwritten, ‘black book’ of fine wines.
Critic reviews - total score 6 out of 10
The main restaurant at the Four Seasons has triple-Michelin-starred French chef Anne-Sophie Pic as the chef - and she's Michelin star for this restaurant too. It's very much a modern French fine dining affair.
Critic reviews - total score 7.5 out of 10
Cabotte is a restaurant founded by two Master Sommeliers. So while the menu is classic French, really the key thing here is the wine list that accompanies it. A good wine for bringing any really keen wine drinkers.
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
The original Blanchette was a big hit in Soho, serving up small plates of French cooking. This restaurant has a similar small plates approach as the original, but the menu has expanded to include more influences from South France and North Africa too.
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
This is and all-day French bistro from the people behind bars Happiness Forgets and Original Sin, Alastair Burgess and Chris Smith. It's aiming to bring the feel of a "cosy French bistro" to Hoxton and to make it affordable too.
Critic reviews - total score 7 out of 10
The people behind Parisian restaurant Taillevent brought this spin-off Les 110 de Taillevent to London. It focuses on food and wine pairings and is named after the 110 wines available by the glass. Each of the 30 dishes is matched by one of four selected glasses.
Critic reviews - total score 7.5 out of 10
Launched by the same folk who run the popular French neighbourhood restaurant Frenchie in Paris, their London restaurant has a French/British twist to many of the dishes - all with British sourced ingredients. Look out for excellent cocktails.
Critic reviews - total score 5.5 out of 10
This 50-cover restaurant will be open all day, starting with breakfast from 7am and - good news - they'll have a bar that's open till 2am with a 30 cover terrace. The food will be French-Vietnamese and there'll be shellfish dishes, steaks and ribs, cooked on the Robata charcoal grill.
Critic reviews - total score 6.5 out of 10
This all-day Provencal restaurant offers "coffees and brunch throughout the day as well as more of a restaurant and bar atmosphere in the evenings." Simon Conboy, the previous executive chef at The Ivy and Rivington Grill in Dubai is Exec chef and it comes from Charlie McLean who used to be at Cau and Gaucho.
Critic reviews - total score 7.5 out of 10
This wine bar comes from the same people behind the hugely popular Experimental Cocktail Club and this bar's sister site in Paris. Expect the wines to steer clear of the mainstream and the food to be a mix of seasonal British and French cuisine.
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
This restaurant on the borders of Islington and Stoke Newington, was the first from the group that also brought us Westerns Laundry and Jolene. As with their other restaurants, there's a regularly changing menu - influenced by Parisian Bistronomy - and it's paired with a carefully selected wine list that's also regularly updated.
Critic reviews - total score 8 out of 10
This Chelsea brasserie has a lot of respected restaurant folk behind it who have worked at Brasserie St Jacques, The Greenhouse, Brown’s Hotel, The Ritz Hotel, Harry’s Bar and The Arch. Expect classic French brasserie dishes with a lot of trolley service too.
Critic reviews - total score 6.5 out of 10
Blanchette is from three brothers Maxime, Yannis and Malik Alary who have opened this "French bistro serving simple, classic and inventive French food". Similar to Salt Yard, it's primarily based around sharing "French tapas" plates. Look out for its sister restaurant in Shoreditch too.