Boulestin

At Boulestin you'll find classic French cuisine served impeccably in convivial and relaxed surroundings. The French Restaurant in London.

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At Boulestin you’ll find some classic French dishes served impeccably in convivial and relaxed surroundings.

But there’s more and not just French food.

We also have dishes from other countries and there are lighter, healthier dishes available.

We like to think our namesake, food pioneer X Marcel Boulestin, would approve.

‘X. Marcel Boulestin, Doctor of the Philosophy of the table, Culinary Ambassador to the English, intelligent gentleman of  France, man of the world, essayist of vigor and charm…’

http://boulestin.com

Mayfair dining spot and hedge fund favourite Boulestin has gone bust

Boulestin, the Mayfair dining spot oft frequented by hedge fund managers and financiers, has fallen into administration.

The reimagined Mayfair restaurant, designed to be an homage to Monsieur Boulestin, was opened in 2013 by Kissin – who is also the name behind Bibendum, Quaglinos and Bluebird.

It launched to great critical acclaim at the time, and in the following years was frequented by organisations such as HedgeBrunch, the dining club for hedge fund managers, which was hoping to add the restaurant to its asset management and family office members' perks app.

HedgeBrunch's chief executive, Gus Morison, said Boulestin was a "lovely spot" and "very much on brand for our curated selection of dining spots".

Read more: Restaurant sector faces risk of thousands of insolvencies as Brexit bites Serving dishes such as grilled octopus and "Jambon Persilée", with main courses generally priced between £20 and £30, Boulestin's location between Green Park and St James's Park made it a desirable destination for both the business people of the district and its wealthy residents.

Boulestin, London SW1, restaurant review - Telegraph

I had oeuf en meurette (£8.50), the quickest description of which is: picture a coq au vin, remove the chicken and poach an egg in the reduced red wine instead.

N said he wasn’t a fan of rabbit’s cotton-wool texture, and of course once somebody says that it’s all you think about.

The texture is good, the flavour is better; it’s as moist and fatty as things will ever get on a rabbit.

A great Gallic gastropub The Agen-born chef behind this Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms applies an expert French touch to fine Welsh ingredients.

Expect a classic madeira jus with wild boar (£26) and boudin noir with crispy pork belly and roasted pears (£19.50) Traditional terrines, Provençal tarts and delicate noisettes of lamb are all part of Olivier Troalen’s repertoire.

Review of French London restaurant Boulestin by Andy Hayler in ...

It had been quite the thing in its day, with Marcel Boulestin appearing as a TV chef as far back as 1937 on the BBC.

More prestigious wines are available, such as Thomas Morey 2009 at £250 for a wine that retails at £120.

Lemon cheesecake had a good base and reasonable lemon flavour (13/20).

Service was excellent, the waiters carefully trained, topping up wine and removing empty glasses with alacrity.

The bill, with pre-dinner drinks and a modest bottle of wine, came to £93 a head, which to be honest is a lot of money for the standard of food delivered.

Boulestin, London

Nobody could have been more excited than I was to see the name Boulestin reappear above the door of a London restaurant.

Number 5, St James’s Street, the address Kissin has hung the name over, comes with a rich patina of restaurant history itself.

Chef Marcel Boulestin Cooking for the BBCAs I walked down St James’s Street alongside Mrs Lander, I was excited and certainly far less nervous than I had been before my last dinner at Boulestin.

The dining room is really charming, but as the manager presented the menu and wine list, I couldn’t make up my mind whether I was sitting in a restaurant or a brasserie.

Kissin, who may not be doing his staff any favours by anxiously pacing the floor, needs to invoke the spirit, and not just the name, of Marcel St James’s Street, London SW1A 1EF, 020 7930 2030; columns at www.ft.com/lander

Boulestin, St James's – tried and tasted | London Evening Standard

French restaurant Boulestin has been open on St James’s Street for less than three years, but has a history which goes back much further.

It takes its lead from a restaurant of the same name which sat in Covent Garden from 1927 to 1994, run by legendary TV chef, author and restaurateur Xavier Marcel Boulestin.

There was something about the restaurant and the cook that captivated Joel Kissin — a restaurateur with an impressive pedigree of his own, having worked with Sir Terence Conran to launch sites including Bibendum and Quaglino’s, themselves not known for being cheap — and he launched Boulestin in his honour in 2013.

Now the restaurant has launched a new tasting menu, put together by 23-year-old head chef Elliot Spurdle.

Slices of tasty, fat-rich Basque sirloin steak (pictured at top) make a satisfying main, served with oxtail-stuffed snails in a nod to the restaurant’s heartland, and a searingly — almost wincingly — strong wild garlic purée.

Boulestin, London SW1, restaurant review - Telegraph

I had oeuf en meurette (£8.50), the quickest description of which is: picture a coq au vin, remove the chicken and poach an egg in the reduced red wine instead.

N said he wasn’t a fan of rabbit’s cotton-wool texture, and of course once somebody says that it’s all you think about.

The texture is good, the flavour is better; it’s as moist and fatty as things will ever get on a rabbit.

A great Gallic gastropub The Agen-born chef behind this Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms applies an expert French touch to fine Welsh ingredients.

Expect a classic madeira jus with wild boar (£26) and boudin noir with crispy pork belly and roasted pears (£19.50) Traditional terrines, Provençal tarts and delicate noisettes of lamb are all part of Olivier Troalen’s repertoire.

Boulestin: the revival of London's famous French restaurant ...

Those of a certain age who frequented its underground rooms, or perhaps found themselves on one of its red leather banquettes on murky assignations with inappropriate men, will have seized with delight on the news that the classic French restaurant Boulestin has been revived.

That has happened to the denizens of St James’s, the rather awkward – if you happen to be a restaurant owner – location of the new Boulestin.

Kissin, who was born in New Zealand, had, like his new restaurant, an old-fashioned start in the food world.

'Everyone yearns for an old-fashioned French restaurant of the 'kind one searches for in Paris' (JAMES BEFORD) Having acquired the site, he embarked on the pleasurable task of turning it into an old-fashioned French neighbourhood restaurant – ‘Not a pastiche,’ he says firmly, ‘but a nod in the direction of a French brasserie.’

Kissin’s new Boulestin may lack some of the eccentric, rather camp charm of the original, but it’s still a pretty good place to be on a filthy day in January, light and elegant on the eye in terms of the decor, fragrant with classic French cooking, and stuffed with the well-heeled inhabitants of SW1, who can now incorporate a decent lunch into a morning spent shopping at Lobb’s or Berry Bros.

Boulestin: restaurant review | Jay Rayner | Life and style | The ...

The curious thing is that the man behind Boulestin, Joel Kissin, is one of those most responsible for infesting London with white-walled, chromium dining rooms.

It was originally opened in Covent Garden in 1926 by Marcel Boulestin, the great anglophile French cookery writer who died in the 1940s leaving behind his restaurant.

Boulestin was the sort of man London had a lot of time for in the 1920s: a taste maker who turned his hand to everything from interior design to writing fiction.

The original Boulestin, the celeb-infested Wolseley of its day, was said to be the most expensive restaurant in London.

A moment's silence: this weekend sees the closure of Rhodes 24 at Tower 42 in London, the last Gary Rhodes restaurant in the capital.