Evening Standard
Joanna Taylor had a mixed reaction to another heavyweight opening, Claude Bosi’s tribute the bouchons of Lyons – and to his Lyonnaise grandmother.
The red velvet drapes and candlelit tables were evidence, she said, that
“romance isn’t dead (unless you don’t like complimentary pork and duck fat
scratchings, in which case: you don’t deserve it anyway)”.
Oeufs meurette and twice-baked Saint-Félicien soufflé hit the spot – the latter a “silken delight”, but “we find the generous slab of fromage de tête (pig’s head terrine) a touch over-seasoned, which turns out to be a theme”: the trotter croquette and “tater tot-like pommes duchesse” were also too salty.
Overall, Josephine was “charming, esoteric and a tad unpredictable”.
Joanna Taylor - 2024-03-25The Observer
“Oh, my aching old-fashioned heart,” Jay Rayner swooned over Claude Bosi’s bouchon, a “beautifully executed act of remembrance” of his grandmother and of his hometown’s gastronomy – and he had no complaints about the seasoning.
“Everything here really is an indulgence but it’s also precise,” he said,
highlighted a “burnished vol au vent, filled with chicken and mushrooms and up to its comely thighs in the sort of cream-based sauce you would find listed in the old edition of Larousse Gastronomique”.
Better still, Jay found Josephine a lot more affordable than his other
restaurants (Bibendum, Brooklands and Socca), while the ‘canut’ dishes,
referencing the silkmakers of Lyons, were especially good value.
The Times
Giles Coren knew he was going to like uber-chef Claude Bosi’s tribute to the bouchons of his Lyonnais youth, although he made great play of it being in inaccessible Fulham when it is comfortably in Chelsea – unlike Chelsea FC and Chelsea Harbour, which are indeed both across the border in Fulham.
Still, the all-but-empty houses owned by non-resident moneybags in the streets nearby set up Giles’s punchline, that “Joséphine Bouchon is a seriously wonderful neighbourhood restaurant which lacks, to be perfect, only a neighbourhood”.
As for the food, he enjoyed a series of Lyonnais classics: quenelle de brochet “as light as a meringue, wobbly as a blancmange, egg and air and the gentlest savour of the sea… You don’t see it much any more, but it’s hard to imagine it was ever done better than this”; ris de veau “the size and shape of a toddler’s fist, very faintly crisp at the edge but then properly gooey throughout”; rabbit à la moutarde “jointed into a lovely earthenware oval dish under a clingy sauce”; and “an immaculate gratin dauphinois that was “not much smaller than central Lyons”.
Giles Coren - 2024-06-23
Drinks
Extras
