Luc's Brasserie, Leadenhall Market

The average Parisian bistro is a delicate balance of faultless cooking and zero tolerance. As a paying customer, if your accent’s a bit dodgy and you’ve forgotten the apposite phrase for “is service included?” most waiters won’t even stir your soup after it’s been spat in.
Vegetarians are banned, and if you don’t enjoy your steaks rarer than a smiling Parisian you’d better at least be able to whistle “La Marseillaise” backwards while steering your bicyclette into a union dispute. But the food is more often than not exactly what you imagined when you ordered it: simple ingredients conjured, without fuss, into memorable, comfort food. When you find a good bistro, you stick to it.

Finding a good bistro outside its native France has traditionally been something of a challenge. Ask a Frenchman and he’ll no doubt reply that a bistro’s main components (a simple, unchanging menu; sawdust on the floor; a chaotic, Gaulloise-infused atmosphere; a secret to all but the most regular of regulars; rickety chairs) are simply unexportable. It’s a moot point, but attempting to name more than a handful of London bistros that you’ve visited more than once is harder than it sounds. Le Boudin Blanc makes a good case. The French House in Soho is reliable, and Mon Plaisir rarely disappoints, but arguably none have the full set of ingredients for a traditional bistro. Nor, it seems, does Luc’s—a smart French-themed restaurant with new owners and a new chef, overlooking Leadenhall Market. The place was relaunched as a “deluxe bistro” at the back-end of last year and first impressions are extremely good. The dining room is equally imposing and inviting: the type of place where you tuck into your starter at one pm and the next time you look at your watch it’s four o’clock and you’re well into your third bottle of Burgundy. And if you like your wine lists in chapters, it’s worth taking your place at the bar just to admire the breadth of the cellar, although there aren’t nearly enough options by the half or third bottle.

Luc’s already has a reputation for its boisterous City clientele, which is hardly surprising—it’s a five-minute walk from the Bank of England. What’s immediately obvious is that the suits are having a rip-roaring time and some could well be debating taking the rest of the afternoon off, which can’t be a bad thing. What’s equally obvious is that the food is only distantly related to the concept of bistro cooking. There are a few staple items: foie gras paté; a decent French onion soup; beef bourguignon; a superb, if slightly chewy aged Irish fillet (some like their steak chewy, some don’t).

But wild mushroom risotto and fish and chips are decidedly un-Gallic dishes, and reflect a wildly eclectic menu, which instead of seeking comfort in its own genre, ends up borrowing from a wide spectrum of influences in the belief that limiting things to a single country is somehow a risk not worth taking. The risk, surely, is in gambling on the fact that people come to a French bistro to eat a Caesar salad.
Prices unfortunately reflect the affluence of Luc’s target clientele, but the service is cheerful and the chef even came out to ask if the beef was to my satisfaction. It was.