Josephine French Bistro in Chelsea: £18.50 Plats du Jour

Josephine serves a different plat du jour every weekday, and every one costs £18.50. Monday is quiche Lorraine, Wednesday is beef bourguignon made with paleron, and Friday is mouclade with frites. The room is at 315 Fulham Road, London SW10 9QH, on the corner of Callow Street, and it is the Chelsea bistro that two-Michelin-star chef Claude Bosi opened with his wife Lucy in 2024. If you want a french bistro near me in South West London with real Lyon cooking, start here.

Claude Bosi was born and trained in Lyon, where his parents ran a bistro, and in London he also runs Bibendum, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Michelin House. Josephine is his homage to the bouchons of his home town, the small, loud, wine-soaked restaurants that Lyon is famous for. The name is personal: Josephine was Claude's late grandmother. Early press called it Josephine Bouchon, and the Instagram handle still does, but as The Nudge pointed out, her surname was not Bouchon. That word just describes the style of restaurant.

The bistro took over the corner site that used to be Colette and opened in March 2024. Hot Dinners gave 2 March as the date after an earlier January plan slipped, and by 18 March trade press were reporting it open at 315 Fulham Road. The Good Food Guide has since named it Best Local Restaurant 2026, and Harden's calls it one of the most commented-on and best-liked venues in its annual diners' poll. A second Josephine opened on Blandford Street in Marylebone in April 2025, but the Chelsea room is the original.

Fabled Studio designed the 76-cover dining room, taking its cues from Lyon's historic bouchons. The Good Food Guide's first look compared the result to Keith McNally's restaurants in New York: cosy, but more spacious than you expect from the street. Expect close tables and a steady noise level from the first sitting onwards. Harden's reviewers are honest about it. Fans admit that the tables are too close together and that it is noisy enough that a private conversation feels impossible even in a whisper.

That makes Josephine a better choice for a lively dinner with friends than for a quiet business lunch or a first date that needs talking. Time Out's tip is the one worth remembering when you book: ask for a seat in the roomier room at the back, because the front can be a squeeze. At launch the team also brought over the Lyon custom of wine by the metre, where a long bottle sits on the table and you pay only for what you drink.

The à la carte reads like a tour of Lyon. Start with the French onion soup at £15.50, Herefordshire snails in garlic butter at £14 for a starter portion or £26 for a main, or a Saint-Félicien cheese soufflé at £10.50. Leeks vinaigrette at £9.50 is the light opener, and steak tartare comes as a starter at £12 or a main at £19.50. Frites are £7, and you will want them with almost everything.

Mains lean rich. The vol-au-vent à la Lyonnaise, filled with chicken and mushroom, costs £30 and is the most Lyonnais thing on the menu. Skate wing meunière is £28, calves' liver with persillade is £27, beef fillet au poivre is £47, and veal sweetbreads with morel sauce top the list at £49.50. For a group of two to four, the lapin à la moutarde with tarragon sauce is served to share at £79. Harden's reviewers warn that much of the menu is heavy and calorific, so pace yourself.

The best value at Josephine is on weekdays at lunch. The plats du jour cost £18.50 each and run on a fixed weekly rota: quiche Lorraine on Monday, poulet sauté with tarragon on Tuesday, paleron beef bourguignon on Wednesday, confit duck leg on Thursday and mouclade with frites on Friday. Pick your day by the dish, add frites, and you have a proper Lyon lunch for well under the price of one à la carte main.

The Menu de Canut is the other bargain. Named after Lyon's silk workers, it costs £24.50 for two courses or £29.50 for three, with dishes such as salade Lyonnaise, andouillette with mustard sauce, and oeufs à la neige with pink praline. Andouillette is the most divisive sausage in France, strong and offal-heavy, so skip it unless you already know you love it. Everything else on that set is an easy introduction to the bouchon style.

Josephine Chelsea opens every day. Monday to Friday, lunch runs 12pm to 2:30pm and dinner runs 5:30pm to 9:30pm. On Saturday and Sunday the kitchen serves straight through from 12pm to 9:30pm, which makes a late weekend lunch easy. Tables are booked through SevenRooms from the Reservations page on the bistro's website, and the Marylebone branch keeps different hours, so check you are booking Chelsea.

Two charges appear on every bill. A discretionary 13.5% service charge is added, along with a £2.50 per person cover charge. Corkage is £35 plus service per bottle, but there is no corkage at Chelsea lunch and dinner on Mondays, or on Sundays from 5:30pm. Wine lovers can bring a special bottle on those slots and keep the bill down.

Head west along Fulham Road towards Brompton Cemetery, one of London's Magnificent Seven Victorian cemeteries and now looked after by the Royal Parks. Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the suffragettes, is buried there, and the paths between the Victorian graves make a quiet walk before a weekend lunch. It is a good way to arrive hungry.

In the other direction, Michelin House on Fulham Road is about a fifteen-minute walk according to Time Out. It is home to Bibendum, Claude Bosi's two-Michelin-star restaurant, and the building itself is worth a look even if you are not booked in. Walking between the two gives you both sides of Bosi's cooking in one afternoon. If Josephine is full, the Marylebone Josephine on Blandford Street serves the same style of food and is the obvious plan B.

Address: Josephine, 315 Fulham Rd, London SW10 9QH, near Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Email: enquiries@josephinebistro.com. Nearest stations: Fulham Broadway and South Kensington. Hours: Monday to Friday 12pm to 2:30pm and 5:30pm to 9:30pm; Saturday and Sunday 12pm to 9:30pm. Charges: 13.5% discretionary service and a £2.50 per person cover charge. Booking: SevenRooms via the official website.

First visit plan: book a Wednesday lunch for the bourguignon, ask for the back room, order the onion soup and frites, and finish with the profiterole. Then walk west to Brompton Cemetery while the afternoon light lasts.