Josephine Bouchon

Josephine Bouchon opened on Fulham Road in early 2024, Claude Bosi’s tribute to his grandmother and to the bouchons of Lyon, the modest inns that once fed the city’s silk workers hearty, unfussy food. Bosi, whose fine dining pedigree includes two Michelin starred Bibendum, applies real technical rigour to what is deliberately humble cooking: sausages, andouillette, pates and pike quenelle rather than anything trying to impress on presentation alone, served at lunch from midday and dinner from half past five most days.

The room commits fully to the bit, with starched white tablecloths, burgundy leather banquettes, taper candles and walls covered in Toulouse Lautrec style prints, and a cobalt blue shopfront with lace curtains that makes it easy to spot from the street. It reads as considerably more polished than most London attempts at French bistro cooking, and reviewers consistently note that the kitchen’s execution sits well above the genre’s usual standard in this city.

Tables are close together, which suits the bouchon format but means this isn’t the spot for a quiet, private conversation. Lunch service runs shorter hours than dinner, and demand since opening has been strong enough that walk ins on a Friday or Saturday evening are a real gamble, so booking ahead is close to essential if there’s a specific time in mind.

The main honest caveat is that some of the more traditional dishes, andouillette especially, are genuinely challenging for diners unfamiliar with old school French offal cookery, and the menu doesn’t soften that for a London audience. This isn’t a beginner’s introduction to French bistro food; it’s the real, occasionally confronting version of it, and worth knowing before ordering blind off the specials board.

A second, larger branch has since opened in Marylebone, but the original Fulham Road bouchon remains the tighter, more atmospheric of the two, and the one that best captures Bosi’s original idea.