Cafe Rouge - Finchley

Café Rouge has around one hundred branches throughout Britain all offering a wide range of dishes drawn from the French cuisine. Slightly less than half their branches are in or close to London. Almost inevitably the décor and design of each restaurant differs from the others, but there is a general curtsy towards La France.

Many restaurants do an excellent breakfast, or shall we say petit dejeuner, at which such delights as scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toasted brioche, croque Madame, croissants and savoury pancakes make welcome appearances, and to their credit the English traditional gets top billing.

An array of hors d'oeuvres takes in classic French onion and beef soup with a melted gruyere crouton, Café Rouge mussels in white wine, herbs, garlic and cream served with a warm bread baton. Salads, pasta and quiches feature largely, as do baguettes and croques. Quick dishes, ideal for lunch, include smoked Toulouse sausages with herb mash, caramelised onions and thyme jus, and penne au pesto.

Moving on to more serious stuff we find steaks, an 8oz bavette and thin cut rib eye, with a choice of sauces that include the signature numéro vingt, prepared specially from over twenty secret ingredients. No French menu would be complete without the poulet Breton, or a steak frites before moving on to the crème brûlée, or the passion fruit syllabub.

Almost invariably the coffee tastes like coffee should, something that sadly can all too often still not be said of our English restaurants, who depend too much upon technology and too little on the acquisition of a certain flair for this important conclusion to a meal.

By now we all know that the French, despite their distinctive habits when it comes to matters of satisfying the inner man, maintain a miraculous longevity of life. This is generally attributed to a number of causes, of which a measured consumption of decent wine is foremost. Café Rouge, you may be pleased to hear, encourages this with a well-chosen selection of French wines. Their price fixe lunch and meals for children, both at a very reasonable figure, also offer excellent value.

Their Website will keep you updated on menu changes, news and other competitions and offers from the Café Society.