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Cock
Restaurants
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London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Description: Authentically French, this restaurant is in the heart of Old Spitalfields Market, with a large first floor terrace covered by a Victorian glass roof and overlooking the market square. The Belle Époque-style surroundings and classic menu will make any visit a memorable one. Feast on the seafood platters or ask the waiter to spice your Steak Tartare to your wishes. All of the seafood is delivered straight from Bristol and only the best catches are chosen. Executive Sommelier Francois Bertrand has put together a 700-bin wine list full of all the major French wines and a selection of world wines to delight all tastes. With 40 champagnes and 40 cocktails also served from the 15-metre zinc bar, you will never get bored. And even beyond all this, there is lager on tap and a large array of spirits and liqueurs, some of which can only seen on holidays to France.
Phone: +44 8000191704
Website: http://www.lebouchon.co.uk
Open: Open from 11:00 to 22:30, Monday to Saturday. Open from 11:00 to 17:00 on Sunday.
Bird in hand: executive chef Olivier Ripert with a brace of grouse at Le Bouchon Breton
Le Bouchon Breton, sibling of Battersea's Le Bouchon Bordelais, opened last October. I went along and out of the kindness of my heart - it is in there, tucked away - I didn't review it.
Others reported on how it seemed an unfortunate time to open such an ambitious establishment in a rather desolate site, with wine prices that seemed cheerfully ignorant of any credit crunch.
I returned last week partly because I am so fair-minded but also to try the first speciality of their "Fête de la Chasse" (game festival), which is Le Lagopède d'Ecosse Façon Anglaise.
Who knew that the French give such an unappealing name to that British culinary treasure, grouse?
Reg and I were double-dating; we'd arranged to meet fellow restaurant critic Giles Coren and his betrothed, Esther Walker, agony aunt of this paper.
Giles and I go back a long way to when he was a boy and - so he claims - I poisoned his whole family on holiday in Portugal with a dish of spaghetti alle vongole.
I remember it as cataplana (pork and clams) - this was Portugal, after all - but let's just say it was obviously too adventurous.
Who knew that the little chip-eater would grow up to be a gastronome with a TV series on the history of food?
Because the lagopède with all the trimmings - including a sauce the French waitress described as béchamel with bread - cost £40, I stipulated that only one of us could have it.
Gallantly, I went for a main course of andouillette de troyes (tripe sausage).
"Had I been in a different continent I still would have known you'd choose that," said Giles.
Esther took confit de cuisse de canard and Reg the Toulouse sausage, which left the grouse for Giles.
The art-nouveau graphics of Le Bouchon Breton's menu lend it the air of a parody or a chain rather than a small group that has Michel Roux Jr as consultant but the contents are a faithful summary of brasserie classics.
Proper importance is placed on oysters and other crustacea and I was impressed to see a well stocked, well cared-for cheese trolley despite only a sprinkling of customers on a Friday evening.
Steak tartare is mixed to order beside the table and Esther negotiated 100g for £10 as a first course as opposed to the 200g/300g for £18/25 on offer and liked the result. She will make an ideal wife and helpmeet.
A dozen snails at £10.59 seems fair enough but they were tiny creatures, mini-snails.
Smoked eel came with what was described as beetroot remoulade with horseradish cream, a sort of French chrain.
These and a dandelion salad with warm St Marcellin cheese were fine, nothing remarkable; we were waiting to see the French treatment of grouse.
The British rules of engagement had been adhered to and the whole bird larded with bacon was presented on a sourdough crouton spread with liver pâté accompanied by latticework crisps, cranberry sauce (redcurrant would have been better), the béchamel with bread and a rather hefty cheffy jus.
It had been cooked to the right point and because it was only two days after the Glorious Twelfth had a delicate flavour.
My andouillette was AAAAA (Association Amicale des Amateurs d'Andouillette Authentiques), which is as it should be.
It was grilled to a nice crunchiness of skin and served with grain mustard sauce and mash.
The confit and Toulouse sausage were good but not much kitchen action beyond heating up is involved there.
I imagine many customers head for the steaks from a single herd "fed solely on luscious Lancashire grass and hung on the bone for no less than 28 days", which range from bavette at £9.95 to chateaubriand for two at £52, frites and béarnaise included.
But the game festival continues with jugged hare and a Plateau de "La Gloire de Mon Père", which is an assembly of roasted pheasant, venison and quail for two to share.
The wine list, if rather exuberantly priced, is nevertheless a splendid tome.
Sommelier Donald Edwards who waited on us - it would have been understandable to miss one restaurant critic but careless not to spot two - led us towards a Fronton Thibault de Plaisance, from the part of south-west France where the negrette grape grows, at £32.
The Jurançon we had chosen by ourselves was served unchilled, which was a pity. We waited while it did time in a bucket of ice.
In the evening the view from the first-floor terrace of Le Bouchon Breton is of a sea of empty market stalls.
It is about as exciting as looking at a wardrobe filled with wire coat-hangers.
We sat inside the restaurant in a booth of quilted red leather and made our own fun.
The restaurant does what it sets out to do with an admirable thoroughness but I advise going there with friends.
A development filled with almost every chain restaurant known to man could otherwise induce ennui.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
This is a grossly overpriced restaurant and you would do better going to Cafe Rouge. The food is shocking, as for the mouse we saw running across the restaurant well.... apparently because it is in the market it is a problem, well we took our problem to another restaurant that didnt give us an excuse like that - awful place.
- Jill, London
This is a terrible excuse for a review. Apart from reminding us at length what a nepotistic world UK journalism is,( if she couldn't have guessed that a well-connected writer's son would collect a comfy job in journalism himself, she must be very naive), it says very little about the food. At the end the writer resorts to using sentences as paragraphs in a way that suggests she has simply given up any attempt at writing a fluid piece of interesting copy. One can almost see 'will this do?' as her accompanying note to her editor. The answer should have been 'no it won't'.
- Pauline, london uk
