Whitehall, French - Restaurant Guide

Set up in 2019 by Freddy Bird & wife Nessa (the latter in charge of FOH, and also the mastermind behind the restaurant’s crockery and ceramics), this Westbury Park icon continues to turn out “classic French bistro food with authentic Gallic ingredients” that “evokes happy memories” of dining across the Channel. Given Freddy’s starry TV stints alongside Roux Jr and co., and its own local reputation (it’s “hard to get a resa”), it did strike the odd cynic this year as “disappointing because of all the gushing praise” (not helped, by the fact it’s also “expensive”). Reports were, however, très bien in the main.

“One of the best in Bath” (that “tourist city largely dominated by chains”), founded in 2016 by Chris Tabbitt, whose CV includes stints at London’s Bibendum and the Old Bridge hotel in Huntingdon, where he met his FOH wife Sarah Olivier. It “seems quite European in the interior” (down to being “fairly cramped”), but that only befits its “excellent French-inspired” bistro cooking, which is offered for a “reasonable” price.

From owner Dan O’Regan, with executive chef and co-owner Jack Briggs-Horan team (who run Bank Bristol – not listed) this April 2025 newcomer opened in Wapping Wharf, too late for any feedback in our annual diners’ poll. Unlike Bank (which as a wood-fired sharing plates ethos) here the emphasis is on traditional French cuisine and wines, and it won a thumbs up in her July 2025 review from The Guardian’s Grace Dent, who finds this repurposed shipping container a “peculiar, meta, slightly earnest, definitely delicious French restaurant” – a typically Bristol spot that shows how, “with a little imagination and clever sleight of hand, you can turn an impersonal iron box into a tiny slice of France”.

“Fabulous small plates in a buzzy environment” have established this tiny neighbourhood spot on a corner site in Bedminster as one of the new stars of the Bristol culinary scene – and many people’s “favourite”, for its “interesting”, Mediterranean-inspired cuisine. Australian chef Mark Chapman and his wife Karen last year opened their follow-up, an Italian restaurant called Ragù at Wapping Wharf.