Josephine Bouchon - Chelsea — Restaurant in London

A good French brasserie is more than old Jean Gabin posters on the wall and leeks vinaigrette on the menu. It's about genuine welcome, warmth and pride in your hospitality. Here, the food looked like it had been judged on the principle of "what's the minimum we can get away with?" the quality was B+ at best and their outrageous treatment of customers looks like they have replaced a restaurant's heart with a calculator. It started with high hopes: I love Lyonnaise food so I was happy to go with a friend as her replacement for an elderly colleague who'd come down with flu. My friend had tried to cancel, found out she'd get charged if she did so she'd decided to stick with her reservation and we would have dinner there. The décor was pretty much that of Café Colbert - vintage French memorabilia covering the walls. Fine. The tables felt a bit close together but we shrugged it off. The service was slightly strange. We were having a dry January so we didn't order wine and the waiter made a little face about it. We felt it would be polite to apologise for not drinking alcohol - though really, why? - and I spoke to him in French. He claimed to be Italian but then I heard him speaking French elsewhere! We wrote this off as just elderly-French-waiter badinage. The menu was French brasserie classics but we chose the more Lyonnais menu. I was thrilled to see oeufs meurettes - eggs poached in red wine and meat jus. We went for the Morteau sausage in brioche and shared some mashed potato. Well, the silky mashed potato was faultless. The oeufs meurettes was for the first time ever in my experience just one oeuf rather than two so the balance of bland egg against rich sauce was wrong. The sauce was initially fine - meaty and winy - but as I ate, it came across as too overpowering. The last spoonfuls scooped up grainy powder at the bottom of the dish. Was it a stock cube that hadn't dissolved? Anyway it spoiled it. The Morteau sausage was disappointing. I think any restaurant in France which had sausage on its menu but in fact served just a 2cm thick slice of it would have riots! That's what we got, set in a slice of brioche, surrounded by more of the too-strong gravy which tasted pretty identical to that in the oeufs meurettes. Part of the charm of this sausage is that it is fatty and in France they generally serve it with something to offset its richness. Here neither buttery brioche nor the rich gravy did the job and the result was it came across as too greasy. I had a so-so café noir and we asked for the bill. We waited, 10 minutes passed, we asked again, we waited some more. My friend vanished to the loo. Finally after I asked a third time, a waiter said there was no bill. "Why?" I asked, bemused. "Your friend's cancellation charge paid for this." "But how can there be a cancellation charge when she didn't cancel in the end and we're sitting here?" He vanished to get a more senior waiter, my friend returned. Yes, although we were sitting right there in the table she had booked, they had still charged her a £100 cancellation charge! And no, they were not going to refund it and bill us for the amount we had actually eaten which was about £25 less! We looked at one another, I had another coffee and we ordered a chocolate mousse for £18 to share. It was fine - very frothy in texture like a superior Angel Delight although shards of chocolate in it made it spiky to eat. But by then their behaviour had already spoilt everything and left a nasty taste in our mouths. In the end we more or less ate the amount of the cancellation charge, with a mousse we didn't want or staying half an hour longer when we were tired. It was still outrageous. There is no way...

Sometimes, when you make such an advanced booking and generate such excitement in doing so, you can be highly disappointed when the event arrives. Arriver Josephine Bouchon, where this certainly was not the case.

Upon arrival, stepping through the red velvet curtain felt like we had been transported to Lyon (without the disappointment of a delayed Eurostar, and with the enthusiasm of a maître d'). We were a little early, so the lovely barman allowed us to peruse the wine list while we perched on a couple of bar stools enjoying a crisp French fizz.

Yes, they have to pull out the tables to enable you to sit down, but honestly, is that really such a hardship? I think it actually adds to the cosiness, and I didn’t feel like any of the other diners were intrusive as a result.

We could have chosen absolutely everything on the menu (perhaps if I win the lottery this will be my first celebration) but settled with some à la carte options, both in agreement that prior to our departure, we must set a date to return for the menu de canut.

The French Onion Soup was delicious, and had ‘the crust’ - as the kids say IYKYK. It was rich without being sickly, and I thoroughly enjoyed the indulgence of dipping butter slathered bread into this, to be welcomed by more ooziness of cheese. The salad of the day was very tasty too, the acidity of the dressing complementing the whipped ricotta with bacon; an ideal companion to the soup (only if you’re sharing of course).

We’d settled on the chicken and mushroom vol-au-vent for one main, and onglet for the other, with a side of frites because of course it’d be rude not to. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to execute a sauce quite like the French so. Buttery, creamy, full of depth and THE SHEEN. The vol-au-vent had a great filling to pastry ratio, and didn’t go soggy, allowing you to then swirl around the pastry in the sauce to add extra enjoyment. The onglet was served medium rare, but still had the succulence of meat that had been cooked for hours. It was served in a sweet shallot sauce that reminded me of the red cabbage I make at Christmas - caramelised boozy. I wasn’t such a fan of the frites - nothing wrong with them but a bit ‘skin on fries’ rather than thin salty frites I have enjoyed many a time in France.

We shared a pink praline tart for dessert, which was nutty, sweet and quite frankly a perfect dish to round everything off with.

The extensive wine list provided much debate/discussion over what to choose, but I then noticed a table of French customers seemingly ploughing their way through the house wine, charged by the measure of what you drink. “That’s a good idea, because quite often we just like a little more than a bottle,” we said. Well, we polished off two bottles because it really was particularly quaffable. It was reminiscent of those times in France where you don’t even know what you’re drinking, but the ambience envelops you until you look at your watch and say “is that the time already?!”

The service was outstanding; they’ve gone down the route of adding a charge (15%) which I’m never a fan of as I prefer old school tipping, but I didn't begrudge paying that amount here nonetheless. Each and every member of staff was enthusiastic, but not over the top. The music was great, and I really felt like I was in France for a few hours, without the tackiness of some restaurants who try to hard when emulating a cuisine.

Oh, and that table of French customers with their house wine - just so happened to be Claude Bosi and friends/family. Says it...

I so don’t want to be this person, but in the hope that this helps the restaurant improve rather than deter diners… I’m reviewing.

I loved the greeting, friendly waiter, waistcoat, young guy, late twenties with a beard. He was professional and friendly. We were early and were told by him (kindly) that we couldn’t wait at the bar because they use it for service. There were three stools, no guests, two of us and seemingly plenty of room. After one drink next door we got our table on time, luckily we were given a nice corner table. All ok / good enough so far. We ordered dinner, got told the chicken would take 45 minutes. Ordered starter while we waited and a bottle of water. We wanted wine too, knew what we wanted from the menu - a pot (almost a carafe) of a Chablis. Waiter refused to take our wine order and said they’d send the wine waiter over. Possibly 15 minutes later and after we asked two subsequent waiters who refused to take our order because seemingly it had to be taken by the wine waiter, we ordered our wine from the Som. That was a 10 second process, possibly 5. Wine came, starter came. The steak tartare was ok (just) while the fried bread that came with it was terrible. Too fried, too crisp, too cold. Actually really bad.

It was really bright in there and we asked (pretty selfishly) if they might turn the lights down a little bit. The waiter looked at his watch, looked at the room, agreed that they should be and that he would - and then didn’t.

One of our waiters (different waiter, white shirt, bald head, nice gentle man perhaps in his 50’s) cleared the starter and then when he came to lay the cutlery for the main he repeatedly touched the sharp part of the knife and then lay our cutlery down whilst holding the sharp end of our knives in his fingers (no gloves). This felt unhygienic and quite weird. It was odd because he seemed kind of experienced and certainly of warm enough charisma, but also that he’d been trained to hold that end of the knife.

Main course.. chicken for two which came with potatoes and a salad. The salad was excellently dressed. Really excellent. The potatoes and I think the chicken too, were the saltiest things I’ve ever eaten in my life. They were so salty that there came a point in the meal where my body felt like a car which had run out fuel, it just halted and couldn’t progress without some water. After guzzling water I gave up on the chicken. My friend asked for some ice from the sommelier for her white wine, I don’t think he rolled his eyes but his body language somehow equated to multiple eye rolls. He seemed really unhappy about it.

This morning I woke up at 4.45am just because I’m parched again and writing the review while I remember.

They were redeeming features. The decor was great, the table was nice, our greeting was good and the food came out pretty timely amongst other things. But you can’t really charge almost £75 (including service) for a chicken without the standards being pretty high. You gave us and maybe many others a meal that gave me a bad nights sleep through dehydration and...