Sutton, French Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: This “stylish restaurant” near the bridge to Windsor has been run for almost 50 years by co-founder Lin Gilbey, who is responsible for its interior design. Her husband and business partner Bill (scion of the Gilbey’s Gin dynasty) sadly passed away in 2022, but Lin has pressed ahead with improvements, acquiring the premises next door to offer corporate entertainment and private dining facilities. Modern British cooking is generally felt to be “solid”.

“A midsummer evening… drinks on the terrace overlooking the river… memorable” – and especially “great for special occasions”. That’s what the royal family thinks, anyway, about this Thames-side legend: one of few restaurants ever to have hosted them in the public dining area (and also, for private dining, the choice of the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip as the venue to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary). Opened in 1972, and celebrating its 40th year of holding three Michelin stars in 2025 (first under the late Michel Roux, nowadays run by his son Alain) it is also one of the Top 10 most commented-on restaurants in our annual diners’ poll outside London; and is especially tipped for landmark celebrations with reports this year of successful 60th, 70th and 80th birthdays marked here. You don’t visit the Waterside for the latest in culinary trends – this is essentially “classic and refined” Gallic haute cuisine and “each element is so full of flavour” with “incredible attention to every detail” from a kitchen team headed by Fabrice Uhryn reporting to Alain. Deft, “welcoming and professional” service is intrinsic to its success, nowadays overseen by Frédéric Poulette, who began his working life as a commis waiter here aged 18. If anyone makes a complaint it’s that it’s “good only and overpriced” and that’s what drags ratings into more middle territory this year, not for the first time. For more diners though it’s just a case of “perfect food, done perfectly”. (“We’ve earned our spurs eating at the Fat Duck and Ynyshir in recent years, but the tasting menu at the Waterside was the best meal of my life. I wouldn’t go back to the first two, but I would definitely go back to the Waterside. My wife bought me a voucher for Xmas so we stayed the night along with two friends. The welcome, the rooms, the service, the tasting menu – all agreed it was outstanding. An expensive evening but an experience I will remember for years”.)

“The food is always delicious” at this riverside bistro from the Roux family (it was founded by Alain and his late father Michel Roux senior in 2017, on the site of a nightclub famous from the ’20s to the ’60s). The “slick, professional welcome always makes for a very enjoyable experience”, and there’s a “simple but well-thought-out menu” – the table d’hôte option is “actually very reasonable” at three courses for £35 per person. Top Tip – “if you can, grab a table by the huge window where you enjoy a fabulous view of the River Thames”.

This “lovely little restaurant” of 10 years’ standing in St Margaret’s is all that a neighbourhood spot should be – “just wish it was more local!” – offering high-class French cooking from former Pierre Koffmann sous chef Gianluca di Monaco. Star of the show is the “superb chateaubriand, air-dried on the premises, that just melts in the mouth”. Note: very busy when there’s a big game at nearby Twickenham.

This “long-established Brittany-French restaurant” is “much loved in Richmond for its good food – galettes, seafood and the rest”, “amazing value” and “decent (if sometimes hectic) service”. Its sale two years ago by founder Lindsay Wotton, who ran it for 35 years, has not dented its appeal.

“Very popular” for its “beautifully presented French bistro food”, this “lovely small restaurant” near Kew station and Gardens is “well priced”, and gains much of its charm and ambience from the retro-Gallic styling of its interior: red-and-white gingham tablecloths, 1950s-vintage posters.

“You can imagine you are in France with the walls of French posters and overall design” at Donna Thompson-Smith’s “authentically Gallic” destination, which has been a welcome feature of distant Acton Green for over twenty years now (est. 2004). It has a good number of big fans who say it’s “more than a bistro, with seriously good classical French cooking making it worth the detour”. One or two regulars, though, say it shouldn’t be over-egged (“it’s local to us and good on all levels, but others in town do the same thing better. We’ve been about ten times: but if it sharpened up, we’d go all the time”). Top Menu Tips – “we always have the soufflé for starters as it is magical”.

With its array of “silky-smooth croquetas” and other tapas favourites, backed up by “a great choice of sherries”, this popular gastropub-with-rooms in the Surrey ’burbs from Spanish maestro José Pizarro is “one of the best places to eat for miles around” – and, as you’d expect of this much-fêted ambassador of all things Iberian, “makes a decent stab at a Hispanic vibe”.

“Ridiculous!”. “We’ve been to a lot of Michelin star restaurants, and we know this is a pub and not a tasting menu restaurant, but, sorry, only a limited choice of dishes for each course and very expensive for what they are at that” – typical feedback this year on Tom Kerridge’s famous Thames Valley boozer. Its fame was sealed in 2012 when it became the first pub in the world to be awarded two Michelin Stars, but after a sunny heyday and many years of celebratory reviews, its trajectory in recent times has been of steady decline and this year’s feedback was by far the worst yet. Over half of reporters consider the experience their most overpriced of the year, and – aside from the ludicrous prices – the food itself also takes flak for being “uninspiring” or “too salty”, with expressions like “inedible” and “made me angry” starting to feature in one or two accounts. It’s frankly hard not to conclude that only Tom’s TV celebrity stops the Tyre Men from pulling the gongs here. Perhaps he is aware, as change is afoot with a reallocation of the team – after our annual diners’ poll had concluded, in June 2025, Sarah Hayward was announced as the new head chef here, crowned Michelin Young Chef of the Year in 2023. Top Tip – during the week, there is a ‘Classics’ menu for £95 per person (not available at the weekends, hence higher formula-price shown).

As “a handy choice near the National Theatre”, the SE1 branch of this celeb-branded chain is both “well-situated” and “always dependable pre-show” according to a good number of reports. It and its stablemates are often praised for their “consistent” standard of “classic brasserie options” (in particular “steaks are really good”). But their overall ratings support those who “feel a bit like you’re on a conveyor belt” and it is safe to say that the group “lacks the ambition that the brand had in its early days”, when M Blanc himself founded it as ‘Le Petit Blanc’ in 1996.

“A decent attempt to reproduce Provençal cooking in Shepherd’s Bush”: Lawrence & Emily Hartley’s “nice local bistro” north of Brook Green – “a successor to a spot that was Café Rouge for many years” (and briefly Mustard, RIP) – provides “French classics” with “friendly service”. Critics feel that at times, “the food, though fairly authentic, can be just a bit underwhelming”; but the majority see “much to recommend the place” and feel it’s a “welcome venture” in this underserved neck of the woods. Top Tip – “good set menu”.

A “family favourite” that “brings back memories of small French restaurants” – this “reliable” Battersea brasserie has outposts in Putney, Wandsworth Common, South Ken, the City and most recently Clerkenwell, where it opened inside Marrable’s Hotel in late 2024. Harsher reports say they can be a little “underwhelming”, though – one reporter complaining that the “cute dining room was let down by mixed quality of the food and somewhat lax Gallic service (in a bad way)”.

There’s no doubting the “fantastic location” of this link in Raymond Blanc’s Heartwood Inns collection – a nook and cranny-filled boozer on pretty Downside Common with a heated outdoor tent and beer garden for added measure. Its victuals aren’t fancy but are “generally good” by common consensus, and continue to be of note for their moderate price tags (especially now they’ve relaunched their bargainous seasonal set menus).

This “lovely old pub” in the Chilterns, handy for the Harry Potter antics at Warner Bros Studio nearby, built up quite a reputation for its Anglo-French cooking over nearly two decades under husband-and-wife team Sally & Alvin Michaels. The 18th-century venue is now managed by Alvin’s former protégé Matt Jackson (and part of the growing RedCat pub company) but, on limited feedback this year, its “exceptional pub dining” still makes it a local magnet.

Emily Roux and husband Diego Ferrari further burnished the credentials of the Roux dynasty in 2025 with the “final, well-deserved recognition of a Michelin star” for their “lovely” destination towards the edge of Notting Hill (“at last, after six years the excellence has been recognised but we regulars have long known about its merits!”). Everything about the place is unflashy but “spot on at every level” – “precise”, “subtle and complex” cuisine “with great flavours is delivered with elegance and savoir-faire” in a “modern” environment that’s low-key but “lovely and cosy”. “The menu changes every month and always offers a tasty mixture of French and Italian inspired dishes, beautifully presented and served by the knowledgeable staff. The Italian sommelier is wonderfully enthusiastic and always steers you to something interesting and not too outrageously priced on the wine list”.

2022 Review: ‘A taste of rural France on the Fulham Road’ is the promise at this ‘gourmet traiteur’ in Chelsea: an early 2020 newcomer where dishes (to go or for delivery within 4 miles) are designed for reheating at home and prepared by Chris Hill, who most recently worked as a senior sous chef at The Ritz. It’s owned by Dimitri and Mira Plaquet, of a high-quality Belgian food group called La Villa Lorraine. They must be doing something right, as in mid 2021 they launched a second store in Wimbledon.

Richard Wilkins’s corner-restaurant on the border between Notting Hill and Bayswater is a small venue often recommended for romance by those who “love the intimate nature of the place” (the maximum booking size is six). The standard of cuisine is high, and ingredients are “of excellent provenance” with dishes using A5 wagyu a longstanding menu feature. As of July 2025, the sample online menu offered a tasting option for £120 per person (£150 per person with the wagyu) but also a cheaper three-course selection for £60 per person, which brings the venue more affordably into reach.

“Bijou bistro tucked away in Westbourne Park” serving a “sophisticated and unusual” menu of “classic French small plates” accompanied by “good wine”. It’s a “cosy” place, with “exposed brickwork and wood panelling”.