{"id":1094967,"date":"2026-07-17T14:02:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1094967\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T14:02:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:02:30","slug":"lunch-at-chez-antoinette-victoria-restaurant-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1094967\/","title":{"rendered":"Lunch at Chez Antoinette Victoria, Restaurant Review –"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cara discovers a little bit of France in the heart of London at Chez Antoinette Victoria.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chez Antoinette<\/a> a family run business of two locations, plus a Gigi patisserie and a caf\u00e9 Suzette. The story began with Aurelia\u2019s passion for cooking taken from her grandmother Antoinette in Lyon. She learnt how to make simple yet flavourful dishes with her.<\/p>\n

The passion continued when decades later Aurelia opened her first restaurant in Covent Garden in 2014 and five years later this Victoria location with her husband.<\/p>\n

The Victoria location is the one that surprised me the most. With the coach station, trains and tube station the location always carried a certain stigma for me. It\u2019s busy, touristy and filled with chain grab bites.<\/p>\n

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But there\u2019re gems hidden around if you know where to look. Chez Antoinette is one of them, set on a quiet square, it has a beautiful summer terrace and tiled bistro style indoors.<\/p>\n

Round tables, wicker chairs, white linen clothes truly add a French feel to it. The menu meets the par. It\u2019s traditional yet simple as the intended.<\/p>\n

Breaking the tradition of visiting for dinner, on this occasion we are here for lunch, so it\u2019ll be a light one. Starting with the classics a cured style salmon and onion soup.<\/p>\n

A sizable bowl with layers of melted gruyere on a sourdough slice. The soup is marvellous, savoury with sweet notes of caramelised onion, umami at its finest.<\/p>\n

To keep the French theme going quite a few dishes are written in the native tongue. Such as the smoked salmon mi cuit, which does not disappoint.<\/p>\n

The technique cures and at low temperature half cooks the fish, leaving a very delicate texture. Just \u00a31 more than the soup at \u00a312.50, it\u2019s a beautiful plate of colours, layered with slightly acidic celeriac remoulade, blood orange cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche and the salmon of course.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very well put together with the blood orange keeping it a little different from the standard lemon or dill pairing.<\/p>\n

Although Chez Antoinette is a bistro they do banging cocktails. The strawberry margarita is lovely.<\/p>\n

If I got this in a specialised cocktail bar I\u2019d be properly impressed, but finding one this good in a French-style restaurant makes it all the more remarkable.<\/p>\n

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Perfectly balanced, with natural strawberry and citrus notes, a hint of hibiscus and just the right touch of triple sec.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m continuing the momentum with beef flavours to my main \u2013 beef tartar but as a main, there is a choice of a starter size at \u00a314 and main at \u00a324.<\/p>\n

Fresh finely chopped parsley and beef, with pepper and salt simple and flavorsome. The meat is a little on the chunkier side but it\u2019s not an issue. It just needs a bit more pepper.<\/p>\n

The main comes with fresh crisp baguette slices and frites. Beautiful golden straw-like fries, they are a delight, takes me back to dinners on our weekend trips to France.<\/p>\n

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With fried dishes you can always tell when the fryer was cleaned and how fresh the oil is. Absolutely no complaints here, as if it was just put in, a fresh badge.<\/p>\n

Crisp, not over fried and just oily enough. Similar goes for the baguette, it\u2019s not oily of course no, but rather crispy and fresh, as seen in France.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean it has traveled the miles across the English Channel. <\/p>\n

Some might relate to this whether it\u2019s the water or the local wheat flour but the bread is not the same here, even when purchased in French bakeries.<\/p>\n

Somehow something is always a bit off, even if the baguette is made with imported French flour, more often than not it still differs in the moisture content and that bubbly crumb that you get at the neighbours.<\/p>\n

The one here is very close to what\u2019s found in France.<\/p>\n

The second main is far less meatier, but just as flavoursome, an Aubergine proven\u00e7ale, sirop de tomate epic\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Silky half of aubergine is glazed in a slightly spiced tomato syrup. Topped with a few ratatouille style veggies, it\u2019s an understated dish.<\/p>\n

The aubergine is almost buttery in texture while tomato reduction gives concentrated sweetness and vibrant acidity. Proof that great cooking doesn\u2019t need unnecessary complexity as intended by Aurelia.<\/p>\n

As it\u2019s lunch we skip dessert. But there is a great selection of pastries which are made next door at their sister patisserie Gigi.<\/p>\n

Chez Antoinette, 22 Palmer St, London SW1H 0PH<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cara discovers a little bit of France in the heart of London at Chez Antoinette Victoria. Chez Antoinette…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1094968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,34982,4884,257,298937,16,15],"class_list":["post-1094967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-french","tag-great-britain","tag-london","tag-london-restauants","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116935693866015002","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1094968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}