Belgravia, French Restaurant Guide

A Japanese accent to the pastries adds exoticism (and expense?) to a trip to this swish perch, in the beating bougie heart of Belgravia. It originally opened in the foyer of the stunning-looking Pantechnicon building next door, which – in summer 2024 – rebranded as ‘19 Motcomb Street’ – leading (we understand from the press) to a relocation of the café to the ‘Halkin Arcade’.

“Exceptional… Just far far too expensive!!” – that’s often the verdict this year on Gordon Ramsay’s luxurious Belgravia destination, which was famous when he founded it in 1999, and which has gradually sunk into honourable semi-oblivion over the years. Wallet-punishing expense notwithstanding, its performance has been very consistent since the arrival of its most recent chef in 2022: Parisian-born Orson Vergnaud, whose modern French cuisine reflects his Toulouse upbringing. A key feature here has, as the name hints, always been its Bordeaux- heavy wine list, advertised by a circular wine cage which helps break up the bland sumptuousness of the room.

“Lovely location and setting” – a hi-viz corner of Sloane Square – is the trump card of this well-known and “busy” brasserie from the Wolseley Group: “a lovely place for meeting friends, whose buzzy atmosphere” makes it “great for people watching”. The “traditional French food”, though, “is relatively ordinary given the location” and rather “expensive”, unless you visit for breakfast which wins more enthusiastic recommendations.

Open from September 2024 in Belgravia’s Pantechnicon building, a new Provençal destination with terrace, taking over the ground floor from Japanese restaurant Sachi, which moved upstairs. The space is very pretty and elegant nowadays, and early reports are positive on the Modern French cooking too, although it’s perhaps a better bet in the day – with its ‘ladies who lunch’ selection of salads, luxurious sarnies, pastas and simple grills – than the more ‘full on’ evening selection, with few mains (aside from pastas) under £50.

New occupant of the Belgravia space that was long famous as Marcus Wareing’s former flagship: this January 2025 newcomer is a London outpost for Cannes-based restaurateurs, twins Ugo & Antoine Lecorche, and aims to channel ‘the golden age of the French Riviera’. It inspired no feedback, though, in our annual diners’ poll, and in his May 2025 review, the FT’s Jay Rayner denounced it as being “about as French as Dubai” with some cooking a “feeble mess” and dubbed the interior design that of an “apocalypse tech-bro bunker”.