COMPARING OUR TWO FAVOURITE FRENCH RESTAURANTS

 It’s sometimes difficult to compare places when there is a gap in time between visits,  but by chance we have booked into two of our favourite restaurants – Chez Bruce in Wandsworth Common and The French Table, locally here in Surbiton – so this a good opportunity. Both are very good so I’m looking at some fine distinctions here. Chez Bruce has a Michelin star; TFT regularly features in Opentable’s top 10 restaurants in London.

There are 6 of us booked in for Chez Bruce and 4 of us arrive together.  We’re shown the light, airy room to our “usual” table in a corner – out of the way but not isolated. The welcome is warm and friendly.  The signature parmesan biscuits arrive in little pots that are topped up as we get through them waiting for the others to arrive.  The selection of breads is a little ordinary.  The wine list is huge, but rapidly goes off the scale.  We order the Chilean Viognier from Tabali at £36, but are told as it arrives that this is the only bottle they have.  M has a G&T (good choice of gins) and G decides on a bottle of Wimbledon IPA.   G looks for a suitable red, but the equivalent Tabali Carmenere is £54, so he decides to stick to the beer. By the time the others arrive, we are selecting our next white – the cheapest other Viognier (French) is over £40, so we go for the South African Sauvignon Blanc – Southern Right – at £33.

At TFT (as it also calls itself) it’s just the 2 of us for our wedding anniversary. I’d told them about that when booking and when we arrive we find a personalised menu with “Happy Anniversary”. The table is covered in celebratory sprinkles, though bizarrely these say Happy Birthday instead! We have a table fairly near the window which is nice (the room is long and narrow, and some tables a bit squished in). TFT run a boulangerie/patisserie, The French Tarte, next door, so the bread is always good – I choose the walnut  but the chorizo bread is usually excellent.  We start with a kir royale each, while choosing our usual Pays D’Oc Viognier (£28) from the more modest (in both senses) wine list. 

The Chez Bruce set lunch offers a choice of at least 6 dishes for each course; at TFT we also choose the 3-course set lunch, rather than the 5-course tasting menu, but that has only 4 or 5 options per course.

For starters at Chez Bruce, I have the spiced fish samosa and B the tuna aioli wrap.  The samosa pastry is very crisp and the fish does have a good spicy kick. It comes with mussels -  far more than I was expecting - in a good broth with bok choi and coriander.  B is impressed with her tuna wrap dish, which also has slices of lightly grilled tuna steak. Others chose miso-glazed aubergine (very Instagrammable), the “special” lobster and scallop ravioli in a  bisque sauce, and fish soup with rouille. All plates cleared, the starters were voted a hit all round.

Over at TFT, there is also a “special” starter not on the menu (there generally is) – croustillade of pork, described to us as like a spring roll – which I decide to have.  Again the pastry is crisp and the pork roll comes sitting on a pool of creamed lentils. The pork is very flavourful, but by the end the dish has seemed a little salty.  B has the terrine: rabbit, ham hock, black pudding and pistachio – one of their regular dishes.  That’s good as usual, accompanied by pickled carrot.

Main courses at Chez Bruce were fillet of sea bream with brown shrimps for me and two of the others, roast cod with truffle mash for B, pig’s cheek for C and chicken breast with gnocchi and trompettes for G.   The sea bream was nicely cooked, but the shrimps came in a romescu sauce that rather swamped the dish. The green beans were perfectly done as you’d expect, and the samphire deep fried and fun. B’s cod came with chanterelles and leeks and was declared to be good. G’s chicken was interesting too.

At TFT, we both opted for cod, as the duck and pork belly options sounded rather heavy. The fish was roasted with a nice brown top, and accompanied by a lobster and sundried tomato risotto in a veloute, with some broccoli.  I thought the risotto was nice, but B thought it was a bit over-powering for the cod.

My dessert choice at Chez Bruce is always crème brulée. They serve it in a wide dish, quite thinly spread, so you get a high ratio of brulée to crème.  Also the vanilla seeds in it are lovely. B had the mango and lime sorbet, and raved over how sharp it was.  The spiced pineapple dish was a hit too.

TFT told us one of the dessert options was “off”, another was cheese, so we chose the other two. But then apparently they did in fact have one of the walnut and coffee tart, so B had that and I had the dark chocolate croquant. Both came served on plates with “Happy Anniversary” written in choclate.  Although the walnut tart came with dulce de leche, chocolate granache and chocolate ice cream, it wasn’t as terribly sweet as that sounds. But for a brilliant demonstration of their patisserie skills, my dessert outshone everything. It was a long slice with chocolate sides, piped Chantilly on top with pine-nut and pumpkin seed brittle.  The chocolate was so intense, the topping smooth and crunchy at the same time. It came with a dollop of ice cream sitting on dark red shreds – spicy! Googling afterwards I found that this Piment d’Espelette is a chilli from the French Basque region, so prized that it has its own AOC registration.  The dark chocolate and the spice was an amazing combination – the best dessert I have had in many years.

With 5 bottles of wine, 3 beers (£8 each), G&T, water and a couple of coffees, Chez Bruce cost £100 a head, the lunch being £50 a head. The French Table was £87 a head, including 2 bottles of wine and the kir royale  - set lunch £35. Both good value given the quality.

How to choose between them?  The French Table has the advantage of being just a few minutes’ walk from us; Wandsworth Common doesn’t have very frequent trains. Although TFT staff were pleasant  and they made a special effort for us, they were very busy, perhaps under-staffed; at Chez Bruce they were more relaxed, and M. Bruce put in an appearance as well.  Chez Bruce is lighter and airier too.   The menu there was more varied and more interesting than TFT (though the latter does have a tasting menu option), and dishes generally scored slightly higher – except for my dessert.