Restaurants

Who needs diplomatic relations with France when the Ambassador creates so well the food we hope to find there? A proper all-day café, with wide-open doors and tables outside, it is run with real commitment and devilishly close attention to detail. From the croissants in the morning, through lunch and the perfectly baveuse omelette (so rare this side of the Channel), to the chocolate marquise with spiced red wine syrup and vanilla ice-cream that rounds off dinner, it has never let us down. Don’t go expecting all Gallic. Yorkshire tea, bacon sandwich on proper thick slices of crusty white loaf, and the joyously seasonal likes of asparagus tart with mixed-leaf salad or plaice with jersey royals and baby leeks – all come at keen prices. A pudding of mango soufflé with passion-fruit sorbet would have been as at home on a stiff white cloth as on the dark green Formica table tops. Dream drinks include Hendrick’s gin and Hereford cider, Noilly Prat and a Manzanilla. Wines with France to the fore, from £14 a bottle and with many by the 50cl or glass (poured from the bottle at your table) are a source of wonder. But where’s our favourite aperitif Lillet got to?

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2009