Le Pont de la Tour

Le Pont de la Tour brings a quietly confident expression of French cookery to Tower Bridge.

The kitchen exemplifies classical technique and the pleasures of texture and sauce: think goat’s cheese tortellini softened by Parmentier espuma and a whisper of pumpkin oil, or a gently consoling soupe à l’oignon, slow-cooked in chicken bouillon and finished under a molten gratin with sourdough for ballast.

The main act favours clarity and craft. A pan-fried sole de douvres arrives on the bone with a bright, saline lift from grenoble sauce, while the grill turns out a grain-fed Australian black angus faux-filet, served the old-fashioned way with béarnaise and pommes frites. It is food that respects provenance and proportion, letting technique do the talking without fuss.

For convivial evenings, there is theatre in the à partager dishes: a roasted daurade de Corse with ratté potatoes, fine beans and sandy carrots, glossed with an avruga caviar velouté; or the substantial côte de boeuf, 850 grams of rib-eye to carve and linger over, with a mixed leaf salad to reset the palate between bites. The cadence here is unhurried and assured, inviting conversation to flow as easily as the sauces.

Settle in, take your time, and let classic French flavours make their case. A little joie de vivre goes a long way.