Restaurants

Proudly claiming to be ‘London’s oldest French restaurant’ (established just after the war), Mon Plaisir is all of its clients’ favourite local. A higgledy-piggledy warren of rather homely rooms slathered with French memorabilia, it is a really beguiling one-off. The food is a little more workaday: a surprise-free list of bistro starters and main courses that run from the steak tartare and coq au vin staples, to less predictable dishes of a style that wouldn’t be out of place in a Gallic gastropub (if such a thing existed), or even an English one. There’s a bit of a disconnect between Mon Plaisir and contemporary French cooking. Our last couple of meals here have been patchy, with good starters (puy lentil and beetroot salad) and dessert (rhubarb tart) bracketing less ably made mains of a dried-out piglet and good but slightly under-cooked cod. Still, the set lunch is good value, the staff pleasant and the buzz mellow. Ambience and comfort are more the things here than the pushing of any culinary envelopes.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2009