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London,
Evening Standard rating
Reader rating
Description: Soren Jessen's "sophisticated but friendly" Belle Epoque-style yearling has been "a happy addition to the Chelsea scene"; it offers "competent" Gallic fare, plus an "overwhelming" (and, perhaps, "overpriced") wine list.
Food: 
Service: 
Ambience:
Phone: 020 7225 2555
Website: http://www.papillonchelsea.co.uk
Open: Open for lunch from 12:00 to 15:00 Monday to Friday, and 12:00 to 16:00 on Saturday and Sunday. Open for dinner from 18:00 to 24:00 Monday to Friday, and 18:00 to 22:00 on Sunday.
Dress code: Smart Casual
Good for: Romantic meals, Good food, Ambience.
Payment options: All major cards accepted
Papillon (French for butterfly) means to me the brutal best-seller by Henri Charrière about his horrific existence while sentenced to a life of hard labour in a penal colony in French Guiana.
Even played by Steve McQueen - as he was in the film of the book - I couldn't quite see Charrière sitting happily in the restaurant of his nickname (linked to the tattoo on his hard-man chest) in Brompton Cross. I think the only aspect of which he would have approved was the absolute dedication to smoking among many of the customers.
Papillon, the restaurant, is a joint enterprise between Soren Jessen, owner of One Lombard Street as well as the much less impressive Kilo Kitchen and Bar and Graze; general manager and sommelier Philippe Messy; and chef David Duverger who, like Messy, has worked at L'Etranger in Gloucester Road.
The cooking is French de nos jours, a style which here, mercifully, doesn't mean entering the realm of fusion. In fact, in the menu descriptions written in French the word "traditionnel" crops up a couple of times - with reference to the garnish for fish soup and steak tartare.
The vegetarian menu - £17.50 for two courses - is written only in English, presumably on the grounds that no French person would be interested.
To my surprise, one of my companions known for her abiding love of foie gras decided to go down the vegetable market route, starting her meal with pan-fried asparagus salad with Parmesan cappuccino and following that with pea risotto and rocket salad.
She fared least well of the four of us. The three measly spears of asparagus were limp, their salad was too vehemently dressed and the risotto managed to be both overcooked (soggy rice) and under-seasoned.
When in France, or that bit of London that yearns to be there, eat like a French person and order thyme-scented roasted veal chop with petits pois à la Française and a little casserole of mashed potato at £35 for two.
This was an exemplary and understandably expensive dish with the massive chop, cooked to retain a trace of pink, sliced and served on a board and the bone offered for additional gnawing.
The peas with lardons and onions were delicious, the mash smooth and buttery and the little pan of gravy a beautiful reduced veal stock. My choice of first course, crab-and-celeriac remoulade with what was called a shellfish bavarois (theoretically involving gelatine) but was more like an intense mousse of the crab's brown meat, was also first-rate. I liked the detail of julienne of crisp apple mixed into the root vegetable in mayonnaise.
The person sharing the chop had been bullied by those five portions that hang over our heads every day into looking to the vegetarian menu for her starter. Green pea soup was served in a huge soup plate with a poached egg, a heap of spinach and a potato cake served on a separate plate. All together, it was too much - a meal on its own - but the soup itself was extremely good.
Reg, the only man at the table, uncharacteristically lurched towards a list of salads, supplied, most people would have realised, for ladies who lunch. Themed around the compass points of France, he chose East which was Cavaillon, a salad of leaves, melon and Parma ham. The leaves were mostly lollo rosso so they got swiftly dumped on a side plate, leaving what we usually consider to be an Italian first course.
It seemed the chef 's heart was not in the salads, but he can't be blamed for that. For one reason or another our hearts were not in the consumption of alcohol, which was a shame since a very strong suit at Papillon is Philippe Messy's comprehensive European wine list of over 700 bins, with a policy of ameliorating the mark-up on expensive bottles.
The look of the restaurant reminded me of the Conduit Street branch of Rigby and Peller - corsetière with a Royal warrant - but with dimmer lighting. I suspect it would make Henri Charrière hurl himself off a cliff attached to a bag of coconuts, which was just one of the ways he attempted to escape imprisonment.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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