Camden Brasserie

A very well respected restaurant in a part of London where quality can always do with a booster, an influence the family run Brasserie has been supplying since 1983. Amongst its more compelling attributes is its skill in supplying what are arguably some of the best pommes frites in London, for which the place is now justifiably famed, as well as an interior that suggests a genuine compromise between French café culture and its English interpretation.

An uncomplicated menu offers a good range of starters that double up as light meals, and can include Algerian style lamb sausages with a coriander and cumin dressing, smoked salmon on buckwheat blinis with chives sour cream, a real classic Caesar salad with garlic croutons, anchovy mayonnaise and shaved parmesan, and warm duck with spring onion, cucumber and plum wine sauce.

Amongst the pasta dishes, the spaghetti with king prawns and spring onions in a chilli and tomato sauce is a regular favourite. That sometimes rather maligned dish, risotto, emerges with flying colours, and embraces broad beans, garden peas, fresh mint and parmesan. From the oven emerges braised shank of lamb with sautéed mixed vegetables, potato mash and red wine gravy, or confit of Barbary duck with puy lentils, pancetta and cranberry chutney.