EATING OUT

Tom takes French leave in Fulham, London, at a new spot that’s a tour de force of food from Lyon

To call Joséphine a pastiche of a Lyonnaise bouchon is to entirely miss the point. Because there’s nothing artificial about Claude Bosi’s new Fulham Road restaurant. Born and bred in Lyon, Bosi has named the place after his grandmother, and opened it with his wife, Lucy. A proper family affair.

And with its door swaddled in red-velvet drapes, ‘plats du jour’ scrawled on antique mirrors, the leather banquettes, paper tablecloths, spluttering candles, and windows coyly dressed in white muslin, as well as an assuredly meaty menu, the only thing that isn’t resoundingly Lyonnaise is its London location.

What’s not to love? Softly flattering light, billowing red-andwhite napkins, a prettily mosaic’d floor and the very sweetest of Gallic service. Yup, you heard that right: an oxymoron, but a welcome one. Then there’s the food, and a menu that you want to whisk off for a dirty weekend in Cannes. All the classics are present and correct. French onion soup with a deep beefy growl, darker than a Napoleonic scowl, the gruyère crust hot as molten gold. And oeuf en gelée, a soft-boiled egg suspended in amber duck jelly, the yolk ready to ooze across

Steak tartare is a slick patty of lascivious allure

the plate. Terrine, made by the great George Jephson (and there’s no shame in buying in charcuterie of this quality), arrives in a communal bowl, robust yet elegant, too, served with a glut of cornichons and a great pot of dijon mustard. Even steak tartare is a cut above the norm, a slick patty of lascivious allure.

Sweetbreads next: soft, spongy, joyous sweetbreads, topped with

fresh morels, in the sort of shiny reduction that could turn Joan of Arc agnostic. And a Lyonnaise vol-au-vent, the puff pastry as delicate as a belle dame’s virtue, containing a mass of tender chicken bits (including coxcombs) held in a creamy, velvety embrace. Dear god, those sauces.

Pudding is equally splendide; rum baba – cut from a vast cake, doused in the dark stuff – and chocolate mousse so light it threatens to float off the table. Then a glass of Papa Bosi’s homemade Poire Williams, and

coffee, and… Arrêt! Ça suffit! Get ye away, defibrillator. And let me die happy. Because Joséphine is unashamedly lavish and lovely, a heartfelt billet-doux from Bosi to the city of his birth. Calories and ageing constitutions be damned. To paraphrase La Môme Piaf, I regrette rien.

About £40 per head (three-course set menu is £29.50). Joséphine, 315 Fulham Road, London SW10; josephinebouchon.com

‘Joséphine is a heartfelt billet-doux from chef Bosi to Lyon, the city of his birth’