St Helens, French Restaurant Guide

“Unbelievable views from this dazzling 34th-floor restaurant” are undeniably the prime attraction at this dramatic (and romantic) eyrie in the city’s ‘West Tower’: the tallest building in the country outside London and Manchester. Over the years, though, the modern British cuisine here has been consistently well rated and although you can push the boat out on a tasting option if you want, the prix-fixe menu is competitively priced. Afternoon tea also gets the thumbs-up.

Olivier Troalen’s Gallic staple on the Cheshire outskirts “continues to be a top, most reliable choice for a high-quality dinner, year after year” (indeed some reporters have spent “over 20 years eating there”). “Chef is the owner with wife managing front of house”. “The menu is very French and very extensive”: no worse for being a little old-school, and a “treat when you fancy a return to the 1970s/1980s (it’s a kind of Oslo Court of the north)” with “a lovely northern Gemütlichkeit” to the place. Top Menu Tip – “do leave room for the Gâteau Paris-Lymm – an exemplary large choux bun, filled with a praline crème pat with hazelnuts, berries and salted caramel”.