Bloody French

The faux-bohème look of this place, with its black-painted walls, blackboard menus and big shared tables, is its main appeal. The service is charming and always with a smile, if a little amateurish. With such a groovy interior – you almost expect to bump into Charlotte Gainsbourg sucking on a Gauloises – it's a surprise that the menu isn't so much playfully retro and tongue-in-cheek as plain old-fashioned. From the goat's cheese in pastry starter through to the profiteroles for dessert, this menu is stuck in the past. Brown onion soup was just that, served with a slightly burnt then cheese-coated croûte floating in it like a sodden mattress. Duller was to come. ‘Hachis parmentier' was shepherd's pie, indistinguishable from many canteen versions – but in an attempt to make it more interesting, the pile of mash was divided by a strip of bitter rocket and a drizzle of something sticky and brown, which I was told was a balsamic reduction. The combination was as mismatched as General de Gaulle in a frock. A neighbour's risotto had been garnished in the same way, suggesting either a lack of imagination or a paucity of ingredients in the kitchen. Prices don't reflect the mediocre standard of the cooking: that onion soup cost £3.70, the shepherd's pie £7.90, profiteroles £4.80. Wine simply described as ‘Chablis' – no producer? or year? – is served by the glass, or carafe, so you have little idea what you're drinking unless you order by the bottle or ask the staff, who, on our visit, didn't know. In atmosphere, this bistro emulates the bistros of the trendy rue Oberkampf in Paris that it appears to pay homage to – but the cooking just isn't up to Parisian bistro standards.

http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/10389.html