Le Café du Marché — Restaurant in London

Monday night at Le Café du Marche Not an experience to repeat

Having previously enjoyed Le Café du Marche’s sister restaurant Le Rendezvous I was looking forward to trying the main restaurant with its relaxed French style of candle lit tables, attentive service and nice background music. As a starter I went for the Soup du Poisson and shared a main (with additional £15 supplement) of Grilled leg of Pyreneen milk fed lamb with flageolet beans and a Madeira sauce. Until the starter arrived all went well as we chatted over fresh baguette and a glass of Gavi (Italian in a French restaurant – I know… my hosts choice!).

Nicely presented with roulle the soup du poisson is dark almost rusty brown, which was in itself a surprise – a search of the internet will identify a typically white fish soup sometimes lightly coloured with paprika (as the nearest I could find to explain the colour). Open minded my thoughts were more of a lobster (crustacean soup) bisque which were reinforced by the crunchy bits at the bottom that I took to be shell. Ok, the lack of fishy flavour a little disappointing, but now I could look forward o the grilled lamb. It has been suggested that Pyreneen milk fed lamb is possibly the best tasting lamb anywhere.

Specifically asking for the lamb to be pink that message had not got to the kitchen which served up the worst meal I have ever had. The meat was of light grey colour, with little texture, even less taste, and judging by the slight signs of burning on part of the skin, had only seen a glimpse of the grill as it was rushed out to the table. It had all the signs of a boil in the bag, maybe the chef was on his day off having cooked it the previous day? The only thing to compliment this dire dish was some bland overcooked flageolet beans that resembled lumpy porridge.

After a short while the Maitre’d enquired of our food to receive my response of “ I won’t be ordering this again”. She rapidly scurried away rather than look to improve the situation – but then maybe she knew more about the kitchen operation and retreat was a safest option.

While my host shared the main his inability to define taste set him at an advantage, and our wives seemed happy with their choices. Would I go again? Not on this experience which is a shame because Le Café du Marche offered so much but delivered an exceedingly poor culinary experience.

I'd email them this to comment on but their website email link doesn't work, no...

Café du Marché offers Londoners a little slice of France near the highly scenic Charterhouse Square: candle-lit tables, apparent brick walls, romantic live (but not overbearing) piano music, attentive and proactive French staff. No pressure to liberate the table after [blob] time (a most irritating feature in some restaurants) and a menu that changes regularly. Not to mention a constant stream of baskets of crusty French bread that is most welcome to mop the sauce of the dishes!

The aforesaid menu offers a selection of traditional dishes and is excellent value for money. Vegans be warned, though: this is a traditional French restaurant and not a single dish is vegan.

My partner and I went for the second time in 7 months for a special occasion and had a lovely time. He was very happy with his ham terrine and the duck leg. For the sake of nit-picking and as I am French, I will say that I was slightly disappointed by the foie gras (lack of contrast in flavours between it and the covering apple sauce, which was quite bland) and my dessert (the strawberries of my tartlet were sour and the casing hard and flavourless). My lobster tagliatelles, however, were amazing, with a very generous portion of lobster meat and a lovely chilli kick in the buttery sauce. They disappeared very quickly and I forgot to take a picture. My experience (certain dishes better than others) was also the impression I had the first time around, but then again, I am a difficult customer when it comes to French food 😉. There is a very good selection of wines by the glass if you do not want to commit to a bottle. I loved the Sauternes that I chose with the dessert and the Blanc de Noirs i had with the foie gras.

Overall, it was a lovely evening and I would certainly go back again. Perfect for a romantic evening or a...

Disappointing service and inconsistent kitchen execution let this charming venue down. Recommended by a knowledgeable friend, this place looked a lovely venue for a business dinner with wonderful client. The service started well, but became less efficient and friendly over the course of the evening. Missed orders and slow service was compounded variously by overtly precious and unnecessary condescending interactions by front of house staff. The menu was very promising with an excellent range of classics, with tempting modern updates. The red onion tarte was very good, but the pastry a little too firm. My schnitzel was slightly overcooked, but particularly disappointing, were the limp and warmish frites. I'm not sure if this was a kitchen or waiting staff fail, but these frites were heartbreaking. I ordered the creme brulee and was encouraged by the near perfect brulee, but saddened by the near scrambled-egg creme. On the drinks front, the Gavi was good, the Tokai adequate, but the opened sparkling water bottles were delivered without us ordering, were baffling. This was only outdone by the the waiting staff constantly topping up our wine, water, as if there was a waiting staff performance indicator, they had to target. This felt very odd. This place feels like it has been let down by its...