Randomness Guide to London Menu

French bistro in South Croydon, close to South Croydon Station; sister restaurant to Le Vacherin in Chiswick.

The restaurant opened in January 2008 in Croydon—a location that has surprised many—a couple of minutes walk from South End, Croydon's highest concentration of restaurants. Croydon does have good places to eat if you know where to look: the Banana Leaf offers excellent South Indian food, and the Croydon Steak House has attracted customers with first class steaks "as large as you like" as successfully as it has resisted refurbishment since the 1970s. A £50 per head bistro is a big step up for the area, though, and time will tell whether or not the proprietor Malcolm John will make a success of the venture. When we visited on a bank holiday Monday in March 2008, the restaurant was far from packed, and only serving a single sitting.

From the starters menu, a warm salad of scallops with black pudding and bacon (£7) was well-balanced and flavoursome. A goat's cheese tartlet lacked cheese and was a little generous with the cream, but was perfectly pleasant. Advancing to the main courses, the eponymous cassoulet (£14) came in its own pot and included pieces of duck confit, belly pork and garlic sausage, topped with breadcrumbs (which some decry as heresy, but made it no less tasty). It was perhaps a little more liquid than is common, but had an excellent earthy garlic flavour. Boeuf Bourguinonne (£14) consisted of a slightly sweet beef and wine reduction, in which swam generous chunks of tender beefs, smoked bacon, onions, mushrooms and carrots — each of which was perfectly (and hence presumably independently) cooked. It came with pureed potatoes. A side-order of dauphinoise was cheesy and unctuous, the former due to grilled Vacherin cheese on the top (which again, some decry as heresy).

The creme brulee (£6) was a generous portion, well-flavoured, with plenty of vanilla seeds in the custard, and a good layer of caramelised sugar on top, although the dish arrived cold and the sugar was ever so slightly soft. The cheese plate was a good mixture of hard, soft and goats' cheeses - if anything perhaps a little cold and under-ripe, but served with a good selection of accompaniments: bread, hard wheat and rye biscuits, celery and half a fresh fig (£7). The restaurant has a good selection of dessert wines - we had a fruity Baron Phillipe Sauternes, and a spicy, caramelly Pineau des Charentes.

Service was polite, attentive and knowledgeable. All the waiting staff we spoke to were French. The restaurant takes bookings by telephone, or online via their website (provided by opentable.com). Three courses with wine for two people came to just over £100, and we felt that that was good value. At the end of our meal, a taxi was procured for us in less than five minutes.

A late March menu change may render some of the reviews below out of date. Certainly there was, sadly, no sign of the free nibbles reported by Andy Hayler.

See also:

• Independent review
• Guardian review
• Time Out review
• eGullet thread
• Andy Hayler's review
• An American In London review