Les 2 Garçons
The head chef of Marco Pierre White's Oak Room when it held three Michelin stars now takes your order himself, in an apron over his whites, in a forty-seat room in Crouch End.
Why go
Robert Reid cooked at Roger Vergé's Moulin de Mougins, at Au Crocodile in Strasbourg and at Joël Robuchon's Jamin in Paris before London, then ran the Oak Room at three stars, then Home House and Balthazar (The Guardian, venue). He met Jean-Christophe Slowik in that Oak Room kitchen in 1998; Slowik had come through Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons and Harvey's, and later ran L'Absinthe in Primrose Hill until it closed in 2018. In autumn 2021 the two of them, both living in Crouch End, crowdfunded a twenty-seat room on Crouch Hill and started cooking for their own street. It outgrew itself and moved to Middle Lane. Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand as a new award in January 2024, describing well-loved dishes like French onion soup and steak frites
arriving with a wonderful sense of joie de vivre
2. Reid's own summary of what he is doing is four words long: simple ingredients, cooked in the best possible way.
Order this / avoid
- Order: snails out of the shell in a cast-iron tray, with a garlic butter carrying more torn herb than most kitchens would risk, and the warm baguette that comes in a paper bag to mop it. Duck confit crisped into white beans and lardons. Onion soup gratinated hard. Steak frites with béarnaise. The rum baba, which Rayner watched arrive split, soaked, and lit1. Whatever is on the blackboard.
- Avoid: arriving without a booking, and arriving expecting to be surprised. The wine list is Burgundy, Alsace, the Languedoc and the Rhône, and Rayner called it "an entirely unsurprising collection. Which is the point of a restaurant like this."
What locals & experts say
- Jay Rayner, The Guardian, 22 May 2022, reviewing the original Crouch Hill room:
A true bistro is not there to surprise or dazzle. It is not meant to place you outside your comfort zone. It is designed specifically to be your comfort zone. Les 2 Garçons is about as complete an expression of that as I have come across in a very long time.
On the two of them:less monsters of rock than monsters of stock.
1 - The MICHELIN Guide, 29 January 2024, awarding a Bib Gourmand as a new distinction and describing the relocated restaurant:
Les 2 Garçons is a classic French bistro, which recently relocated to bigger premises in Crouch End, where well-loved dishes like French onion soup and steak frites are delivered with a wonderful sense of joie de vivre.
2 - Bridget Galton, reporting Harden's for the Ham & High desk, 11 September 2025:
Les 2 Garcons in Middle Lane run by chef Robert Reid and Maitre D' Jean-Christophe Slowik has been voted by diners surveyed by Harden's Guide among the top 10 favourite restaurants in London.
It placed tenth in Harden's London Restaurants 2026, on a list led by Chez Bruce, with Bouchon Racine second and three-star Core by Clare Smyth seventh. This is a report of someone else's survey, not the writer's own verdict.3 - Marina O'Loughlin, The Sunday Times Magazine, in a line the restaurant reproduces on its own site with a link to the original:
They've chalked up a victory for the classic French bistro.
Quoted here as the venue's reproduction, since the original was not read.4 - A caveat on all of the above. Rayner and O'Loughlin both wrote about the twenty-two-seat room on Crouch Hill. Michelin's Bib text is the strongest published assessment of the Middle Lane restaurant, and no critic has reviewed the new room in anything reachable.
Good to know
- Where: 14 Middle Lane, Crouch End, N8 8PL. Phone 020 8347 9834.
- Timing: the restaurant publishes no opening hours anywhere, and no source carries them. Call or check the booking system before you plan.
- Booking: essential in practice. The restaurant runs its own reservations rather than a guide platform, which Michelin notes on its listing.
- Price: the Michelin band is two of four. The last published prices, from 2022, put starters at around nine to twelve pounds and mains at sixteen to thirty.
- Hygiene: Food Standards Agency rating 5, inspected 27 May 2026 by the London Borough of Haringey.5
- Diet: no allergen or dietary statement is published, so nothing is flagged here.
- The two addresses: the business started at 143b Crouch Hill N8 9QH in autumn 2021 with twenty-odd seats and a Crowdfunder behind it. Middle Lane is the current and bigger room. Any review dated before 2024 describes the old one.
Verdict
must-visit — Plan around this one. Robert Reid was head chef at Marco Pierre White's Oak Room while it held three Michelin stars, after cooking at Roger Verge's Moulin de Mougins, Au Crocodile in Strasbourg and Robuchon's Jamin in Paris. He met Jean-Christophe Slowik in that kitchen in 1998, and in autumn 2021 the two of them crowdfunded a twenty-seat room on Crouch Hill and started cooking snails, onion soup and duck confit for their own neighbors. Reid takes orders himself, in an apron over his whites. Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand as a new award in January 2024, calling out steak frites and French onion soup 'delivered with a wonderful sense of joie de vivre'. The Good Food Guide made it London's best neighbourhood restaurant. Then in September 2025 diners surveyed for Harden's put it tenth in the whole city, on a list where Core by Clare Smyth came seventh. Jay Rayner reviewed it and landed on the sentence that explains the form: a bistro is designed to be your comfort zone, and this is about as complete an expression of that as he had come across in a very long time. The scarcity is not a dish nobody else has, it is three-star technique at two-band prices in a forty-seat room, and that is Bib Gourmand logic taken as far as it goes. One caveat carried honestly: the reviews were written at the old Crouch Hill room, and Michelin's Bib is the strongest published evidence about the one on Middle Lane.