17 French Restaurants in London

You can find a London French restaurant or at least a restaurant heavily influenced by French cuisine in almost any part of London. For a true French gastronomic and hospitality experience, though, you’d want to seek out top French restaurants in well-heeled districts such as Chelsea and Kensington, which is a traditional French expatriate stronghold. Don’t be afraid to check out more relaxed brasseries and bistros found throughout London, where you can find French home-style cooking and simple dishes such as slow-cooked cassoulet at prices that won’t result in you having to cancel that trip to the Riviera you’ve had planned all month.

While French-influenced dishes are 'de rigeur' on even the plainest British café menus, proper French gastronomy is strictly codified. Top French restaurants in London will sport an extensive 'kitchen brigade' and an attentive 'dining room brigade' of highly-trained, professional kitchen and wait staff. These restaurants might serve French haute cuisine, the upper, gourmet end of French hospitality. Simpler bistro-type settings are far more relaxed, with chalk boards or staff proclaiming the offering. Many a London French restaurant will serve French 'nouvelle cuisine', a typically modern style of French cookery that rejects many French culinary traditions as over-complicated and overdone.