Brasserie Zédel

A grand Parisian brasserie transported to the heart of London.

Brasserie Zédel | Brasserie - Bar - Cabaret - Café

http://www.brasseriezedel.com

Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, London W1 | The Independent

Zédel, the new opening from London's fêted restaurateurs Corbin and King, is so generously proportioned, it could comfortably accommodate the clientele of their two existing restaurants, The Wolseley and Delaunay.

French brasserie food has fallen into enemy hands in this country, debased into cliché by the likes of Café Rouge.

At first glance the most exciting thing about it is the prices, which are competitive – starters rise from £2.25 for soup, and mains from £7.50 (for steak haché and frites) – remarkably so in a lavishly refurbished ocean liner of a dining room in the heart of the West End.

All the expected brasserie classics are here, along with the kind of hard-core, Frenchies-only gear that doesn't make the cut at Café Rouge – grilled andouillette de Troyes (tripe sausage) with mustard sauce, blanquette de veau, lapin à la moutarde.

Around £35 a head for three courses including wine and service Tipping policy: "Service charge is 12.5 per cent discretionary; all tips and service charge go to the staff" Try the grilled Loch Duart salmon fillet with tomato hollandaise and French fries (£11.50) at Raymond Blanc's upmarket brasserie chain.

Brasserie Zédel, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

It was surprisingly easy to get a table at Brasserie Zédel, and then I found out why.

And boy, is it cheap: you will have to be quick, because prices always rise, but for now it's at or below a Café Rouge on price point, and a hundred times more charming.

I had the most adventurous thing I could find, some crevettes marie-rose (£7.75), in which that plural was a little misleading; it was one middling crevette, which was tasty enough, with some prawns underneath that were a bit watery and supermarket.

He continued with the filet mignon (£15.95), and that was a nice bit of meat but the pepper sauce was way too salty.

Take a table beneath the painted skylight and enjoy rose veal escalope with baked figs and artichokes (£18.95) Smart and chic with white-tiled walls and claret-coloured banquettes, this all-day brasserie serves all the French classics, from croque-monsieur (£7.50) and jambon persillé (£7.50) to duck confit with cherry sauce and baby gem lettuce (£13.50) The art deco printing halls of the local newspaper have been transformed into a glamorous restaurant with chandeliers and checkerboard floors.

Brasserie Zédel, London

Brasserie Zédel - London Restaurant Reviews | Hardens

Near Piccadilly Circus, a vast subterranean space re-created by the owners of the Wolseley as an authentic Gallic brasserie on a huge scale; value is quite reasonable, but we are not convinced the formula really 'works'.

Their Wolseley, though billed as mitteleuropean in inspiration, is perhaps - spiritually speaking - the closest thing London has to your grander sort of Parisian brasserie.

Although the tablecloths are paper - homage, it seems, to Chartier, the famously cheap, jam-packed workmen's dining hall in the 2ème - the waiters here decrumb before pudding.

Is this a democratic dining hall à la Chartier (where they write your order straight on to the 'cloth'), or are you aiming to offer a downscale version of dinner at the Crillon?

We do fear the problem is intrinsic: we're not sure that there's a place in the market for a large establishment that's too grand to be truly cheap, and too cheap to be truly grand.

Brasserie Zedel | Soho, Fitzrovia, Covent Garden | Restaurant ...

Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, London W1 | The Independent

Zédel, the new opening from London's fêted restaurateurs Corbin and King, is so generously proportioned, it could comfortably accommodate the clientele of their two existing restaurants, The Wolseley and Delaunay.

French brasserie food has fallen into enemy hands in this country, debased into cliché by the likes of Café Rouge.

At first glance the most exciting thing about it is the prices, which are competitive – starters rise from £2.25 for soup, and mains from £7.50 (for steak haché and frites) – remarkably so in a lavishly refurbished ocean liner of a dining room in the heart of the West End.

All the expected brasserie classics are here, along with the kind of hard-core, Frenchies-only gear that doesn't make the cut at Café Rouge – grilled andouillette de Troyes (tripe sausage) with mustard sauce, blanquette de veau, lapin à la moutarde.

Around £35 a head for three courses including wine and service Tipping policy: "Service charge is 12.5 per cent discretionary; all tips and service charge go to the staff" Try the grilled Loch Duart salmon fillet with tomato hollandaise and French fries (£11.50) at Raymond Blanc's upmarket brasserie chain.

Brasserie Zédel, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

It was surprisingly easy to get a table at Brasserie Zédel, and then I found out why.

And boy, is it cheap: you will have to be quick, because prices always rise, but for now it's at or below a Café Rouge on price point, and a hundred times more charming.

I had the most adventurous thing I could find, some crevettes marie-rose (£7.75), in which that plural was a little misleading; it was one middling crevette, which was tasty enough, with some prawns underneath that were a bit watery and supermarket.

He continued with the filet mignon (£15.95), and that was a nice bit of meat but the pepper sauce was way too salty.

Take a table beneath the painted skylight and enjoy rose veal escalope with baked figs and artichokes (£18.95) Smart and chic with white-tiled walls and claret-coloured banquettes, this all-day brasserie serves all the French classics, from croque-monsieur (£7.50) and jambon persillé (£7.50) to duck confit with cherry sauce and baby gem lettuce (£13.50) The art deco printing halls of the local newspaper have been transformed into a glamorous restaurant with chandeliers and checkerboard floors.

Restaurant review: Brasserie Zedel, London W1 | Life and style | The ...

In the Wolseley and, more recently, the Delaunay they have created poised British costume dramas, flogging tickets to those who can afford their brand of Mitteleuropean (by way of belle époque Paris) good taste.

By comparison their latest venture, the gilded, plumped, marble-clad and sconced Brasserie Zédel, is a vast, bums-on-seats crowd pleaser, a love letter to the classic Parisian brasserie, a soapy wallow in all the things we adore about French bourgeois ideals.

The menu is an homage to the great gastro-palaces of Paris; to Bofinger and La Coupole, albeit without the gastronomic flourishes.

I have eaten choucroute, that glorious Alsatian dish of sauerkraut and salty piggy things, here and at the Wolseley.

Brasserie Zédel feels like a gift to London, the sort of restaurant it needs and deserves.

Restaurant: Brasserie Zédel, London W1 | Life and style | The ...

So, in the spirit of sheer badness, I turn up at their latest, Brasserie Zédel, a wildly expensive reimagining of the former Regent Palace Hotel Grill Room (latterly Oliver Peyton's Atlantic Bar & Grill) without a booking.

As it is at the likes of Paris's redoubtable Chartier, to which the owners acknowledge a debt and several similarities of 'Allo 'Allo-ish menu item: carottes rapées, oeufs durs mayonnaise, choucroute Alsacienne… Apart from excellent bread and butter, it all tastes a little, well, cheap.

Boeuf bourguignon – OK, it's less than a tenner and comes with decent mash, but oh dear: dry, overstewed meat, a couple of teeny onions and, weirdly, carrots in various stages of cookedness from mushy to near-raw.

Because of Zédel's recherché menu, a few pundits have mentioned the dreaded Cafe Rouge in the same breath.

Is Zédel the ultimate democratic move from two master manipulators, or just a pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap exercise dictated by the financial logistics of the extraordinary setting?