Evening Standard
Theming his review around Valentine’s Day, David Ellis declared his passion for a restaurant he loves – upstairs at a veteran Soho watering-hole, where Scottish chef Neil Borthwick (“primary influences Michel Bras and Phil Howard”) has run the kitchen since 2018.
“Have you ever fallen for a friend, noticing their looks long after the first meet?” David asked. “The French is a bit like that. Unassuming until it isn’t.”
He enjoyed dishes of calves brain and cod, pointing out that this is food that “does not show off” – which means the restaurant can be returned to time and again. “It is conspiratorial, trustworthy, fun, encouraging, and reliably always there, whether in times of crisis or celebration. What else is there in love?”
David Ellis - 2025-02-09The Observer
Making her debut as the Observer’s new restaurant critic, Tanya Gold penned a bitter-sweet love-letter to “a time machine to 1950s Soho” – a “fascinating” institution beloved by the three great mid-20th century British artists, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach. This trio now haunt the place: “it’s a private club for the dead, slumming it with the living.”
Neil Borthwick has cooked here since 2018, creating food of great skill and depth. Sensibly, in Tanya’s view, “he does not try to be more interesting than the ghosts, which is impossible.”
Salad of Vesuvio tomato with onion and “croutons the colour of tea” is a marvellous dish, because it is so simple. Disco scallops are bright and fresh, lying in too much garlic butter, “which is the right amount – you want a glut of butter here”. “Everything about the French House is soothing except that it’s the last of its kind: an endling, like Martha the Passenger Pigeon, or a turtle you once loved.”
Tanya Gold - 2026-09-13
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