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With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
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I loved this film from start to finish. Take the girlfriend, tell your mum - I'd see it again tomorrow and will buy the dvd.
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I have been to many of London's so-called best Japanese restaurants and none have been as good as the food that I've had at Aqua Kyoto
London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Description: This "bright" French fish place -- "quietly-located" in Kensington -- is "much the same" as when the site was called Stratford's (RIP); regulars debate whether Patrick (Lou Pescadou's former manager) has improved it or not -- overall, it's "pleasant all-round" (or, if you prefer, "not particularly amazing").
Food: 
Service:
Ambience:
Phone: 020 7937 6388
Website: http://www.chezpatrickinlondon.co.uk
Open: Open Tuesday-Saturday, noon-3pm and 6.30-11pm. Sunday lunch, noon-3pm
Good for: Good food, Ambience.
Payment options:
Something of the spirit of Lou Pescadou: atrick Tako of Chez Patrick
You can rely on the restaurant business to reinforce the notion that what goes around, comes around. Or in the case of Chez Patrick (previously Stratford's) maybe it is the other way round.
Patrick Tako worked for 18 years at Lou Pescadou in Earl's Court, which owners Daniel Chobert and Laurent David are putting on the market after 21 years. The handsome Patrick has bought what was originally Quai St Pierre, when Pierre Martin (owner of Le Suquet) was in partnership with Daniel Chobert. The good news is that "petit coins" of French seaside restaurants still flourish.
Patrick Tako has brought something of the spirit of the menu of Lou Pescadou to Kensington and is in the process of streamlining the interior without losing the cosy familiarity the regulars cherish. Bernard Buffet-like pictures of boats bobbing on blue seas will remain. A good-value set lunch - £12.50 for three courses - is similarly a fixture.
At dinner we started with home-made scallop-and-crab ravioli and half a dozen snails in garlic butter. The pasta was beautifully fine and floppy and the sauce, which melded with the shellfish, almost like a Nantua based on crayfish. The escargots Achatines - a qualifier that seems to refer to the large size of the creatures - tasted suitably garlicky. And that, in my view, is as much as you can expect from snails.
Rognons de veau à la moutarde de Meaux was a dish of the day and my choice of main course. The kidneys were judiciously cooked with just a blush of pink inside. All meat dishes are served with French fries and spinach, but I just had the spinach.
Reg chose grilled cod with beurre blanc and the mashed potatoes "faite maison" and spinach that are the partners of fish. There is an agreeable natural simplicity to the Chez Patrick formula. I suspect that the restaurant's reputation will spread beyond the neighbourhood.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
I've been to the restaurant for 5 years but will not be able to go back because of the new owner's attitude who clearly demonstrated that he has his 'favourite' and 'non-favourite' customers.
It's a shame as the standard of the food hasn't fallen although you can see some results of 'cost-cutting' exercise here and there.
I miss the former manageress who cared about her customers and made it such a homely, enjoyable place.
- Sal, London
Great restaurant!
- Claude, London UK
We have been Chez Patrick twice now, and the second time has been even better than the first time, which was already such an experience.
Patrick as usual was very jovial, warm and welcoming as well as his normal charismatic self, and always ready to spare a minute for a chat about what recommendations he has about today's menu.
We know him from coming regularly to the Pescadou where he used to work, and we really enjoy his new venture, the food is excellent, the service not too hurried but also less boring and slow than in traditionnal French restaurants.
The starters, crab salad with smoked salmon and fish was excellent, too big for one so he recommended we might want to share, I then had the Riz de Veau in puff pastry with morilles (wild muchrooms) and then had home made crab and lobster ravioli, which surprisingly came in a sauce which I didnt excpet, by that time I was already too full... The dessert had to come though, and we both enjoyed a couple of teaspoons of their amazing "pain perdu" (bread and butter pudding) in a raspberry sauce... Excellent atmosphere, the food is great, as nice as the Pescadou if not better, (difficult one to judge) and the atmosphere is more cosy than the Pescadou, as it s a much smaller place.
I do recommend it. For the ones who do not know Patrick, know that he is a special charater.
- Claude, London UK
