Josephine Bouchon

The waiters at Josephine Bouchon leave the house wine on your table, measure what you drink with a wooden ruler and charge you by the length.

Why go

Go for the Saint-Félicien soufflé, then anything the kitchen puts under a cream sauce. Claude Bosi comes from Lyon, opened this room on Fulham Road in 2024 with his wife Lucy and named it for his grandmother Josephine (Andy Hayler). A bouchon was an inn that fed the silk workers of Lyon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and about twenty of them in the city hold a certificate saying so. MICHELIN's inspectors gave this one a Bib Gourmand, the award for good cooking at a fair price. They wrote: The menu could scarcely be more French if it was emblazoned with the tricolore: vol-au-vent, andouillete, frog's legs… take your pick. (MICHELIN Guide)

Jay Rayner reviewed it for the Observer in March 2024 and wrote Oh, my aching old-fashioned heart, calling the place a beautifully executed act of remembrance and the cooking indulgent but also precise (Harden's). Giles Coren ate the quenelle de brochet for The Times that June, a pike dumpling that is Lyon's own dish, and found it as light as a meringue, wobbly as a blancmange, egg and air and the gentlest savour of the sea… You don't see it much any more, but it's hard to imagine it was ever done better than this (Harden's).

Joanna Taylor reviewed it for the Evening Standard on the same day as Rayner and found the opposite about the salt. The pig's head terrine was a touch over-seasoned, which turns out to be a theme, and so were the trotter croquette and the pommes duchesse (Harden's). Her verdict was charming, esoteric and a tad unpredictable. Rayner had no complaint about the seasoning at all.

The tables are small and jammed together and the room is loud. Andy Hayler could barely fit two menu cards on his. Harden's reporters say it feels like you can't have a private conversation even if you whisper1 and then keep going back anyway. Michel Roux Jr turns that into the reason to book: It gets busy and tables are packed but that just adds to the atmosphere and delight to be had. (MICHELIN Guide, July 2025)

Three courses with half a bottle of wine, coffee, cover and service came to £89 a head in the Harden's 2026 guide, against £85 the year before. That is the number to plan around.

Order this / avoid

Order: the twice-baked Saint-Félicien soufflé. Sinéad Cranna calls it "Like having a little cloud in your mouth, but one that's made of cheese rather than water and is a promising golden colour rather than a bleak, ominous grey… It's silky smooth, and has a good hit of strong, nutty cheese" (The Infatuation, May 2024). Then the vol-au-vent, which Jay Rayner found "burnished… filled with chicken and mushrooms and up to its comely thighs in the sort of cream-based sauce you would find listed in the old edition of Larousse Gastronomique" (The Observer, March 2024). The sweetbreads in morel sauce. A Harden's reporter calls them "utterly superb" and Andy Hayler scored them his best dish of the night in March 2024. The rabbit in mustard and tarragon comes in a casserole for the table. Cranna says the sauce is what makes it: "It's tangy and creamy, and each forkful should have some of it spooned over first." (May 2024) Order a gratin dauphinois for the middle, and finish on the rum baba, which a Harden's reporter calls "lethally laced with enough booze to float a battleship" (2025 edition). The cheese board is left on your table to help yourself.
Avoid: the andouillette unless you already know you like it. J A Smith warns of "that, er, 'distinctive' whiff" and says he saw nobody order it (Palate, May 2024). The rotisserie chicken divides people: Cranna found it "very tasty and wholesome, but if you want wow-factor you won't get it" (May 2024), while Charlotte Ivers of The Times ate nothing else and called it "what every meal should be: pure and simple" (January 2025).
Drink: the house wine, charged by the ruler. Andy Hayler counted 230 labels on the list, from £28 to £999 at an average markup of 2.6 times retail, "which is very reasonable by London standards" (March 2024).

What locals & experts say

The MICHELIN Guide, Bib Gourmand, on what the kitchen does with it: It's all executed with great skill and packs in plenty of flavour, while the service is delivered with a certain 'bonne humeur'. The set menu is remarkably good value, as is the 'plat du jour'.5
Hélène Darroze, chef-patron at the Connaught, March 2025, asked where to eat French food in London: Josephine by Claude Bosi. The restaurant is an homage to his upbringing, showcasing the best of a particular French culinary tradition - the Lyonnaise bouchon. Lovely ambience, great ingredients treated well and served with no fuss. Classical, simple brilliance.8
Giles Coren, The Times, June 2024, on where it sits: Joséphine Bouchon is a seriously wonderful neighbourhood restaurant which lacks, to be perfect, only a neighbourhood.1
Sinéad Cranna, The Infatuation, May 2024, who scored it 8.1: Heavy, red velvet curtains frame the dining room, even heavier red wines are served to those who clearly have nowhere to be post-lunch, and excellent Lyonnaise-inspired dishes are big on flavour and low on concerns for cholesterol. Her seating tip: the darker, moodier nook at the back of the dining room is particularly lovely for dates.3
J A Smith, Palate, May 2024, repeating what his French friend said first: this isn't one of those London restaurants cosplaying as French - this feels like home.4
Andy Hayler, March 2024, who paid and printed the bill: this is lovely food from a restaurant that delivers an experience that really does feel like a Lyon bouchon, and a very good one at that.2
Harden's 2026 edition, summing up its diners: A love letter to Claude Bosi's Lyonnaise grandmother, a Francophile's dream and one of the most commented-on rooms in its annual poll, all at 'sensible prices that won't shock you'.1

Good to know

Where: 315 Fulham Road SW10 9QH. The street name says Fulham and the address is in Chelsea, near the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
Timing: lunch and dinner Monday to Friday, and straight through from midday on Saturday and Sunday. The house lists no closing day.
Booking: the house publishes an email address and no telephone number. MICHELIN's page says to contact the restaurant directly. The SevenRooms link covers Chelsea and Marylebone together, so check which room you have booked.
What it costs: in March 2024 starters ran £9 to £19 and main courses £21 to £44, with a gratin dauphinois at £18 to share and a three-course menu de canut at £29.50, named for the silk weavers of Lyon. Expect 15 per cent service on top. J A Smith says a cover charge only showed up when he paid.
Corkage: £35 a bottle plus service. There is none at all at lunch or dinner on a Monday, or on a Sunday evening (the house).
The other Josephine: the Marylebone room on Blandford Street opened in April 2025 and does Parisian brasserie cooking, not Lyonnais, with a Loire and Bordeaux list where Chelsea pours Rhône.

Verdict

should-visit — Go for the twice-baked Saint-Felicien souffle, the vol-au-vent and a bottle of house wine measured off a ruler. Claude Bosi built this for his grandmother Josephine and cooks the food of his own city, which means quenelles, sweetbreads in morel sauce and a gratin dauphinois big enough to share, and MICHELIN gave it a Bib Gourmand for the price rather than a star for the ambition. Three courses with half a bottle came to £89 in the 2026 Harden's guide, and corkage is free on a Monday. Expect a loud, tight room.

Josephine Bouchon.