La Poule au Pot, a Belgravia French Bistro Since 1964

Ask a Londoner for a romantic french bistro near me in Belgravia or Pimlico and La Poule au Pot comes up within seconds. It sits on the corner of 231 Ebury Street, London SW1W 8UT, a short walk from Sloane Square station, and its own website calls it a Belgravia institution for as long as anyone cares to remember. The house dish is in the name: chicken in a pot, served on a table d'hôte that costs £41.95 for two courses or £48.95 for three.

The restaurant opened in 1964, started by the actor Charles Brody. Niel Ware, who worked for him, later took over and shaped it into the classic French restaurant it is today. The building belongs to Grosvenor Estates, the landlord behind much of Belgravia, and La Poule au Pot has stayed in place while the streets around it filled with boutiques. Inside, the restaurant says, the look has changed little since the 1960s, and that is the whole point.

The dining room is a warren of small nooks hung with dried flowers and bric-à-brac, meant to feel like a farmhouse in rural France rather than a smart West End dining room. It is a room built for leaning across the table rather than for people-watching. Harden's diners have voted it London's best restaurant for romance year after year, a line the restaurant repeats with some pride on its homepage.

Most tables order from the table d'hôte. Two courses cost £41.95 and three cost £48.95, and every main course comes with pommes purée. Starters include French onion soup, a cheese quiche and chicken liver pâté. Mains include coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon, cassoulet and La Poule au Pot itself, described on the menu as "our original house dish". Desserts include crème brûlée, tarte tatin and mousse au chocolat, all the classics you would hope to find in a bistro of this age.

If you want to choose dish by dish, the same menu prices entrées at £13.50, mains at £33.50 and desserts at £9.00. The à la carte adds richer plates: six snails at £16.00, scallops at £23.00, a terrine of foie gras with Sauternes jelly at £29.50, Dover sole meunière at £49.00, rabbit with mustard at £36.00, rack of lamb at £45.00 and an entrecôte at £43.00. A side of frites costs £7, and a 12½% optional gratuity is added to the bill.

The maths favours the set menu. Ordered separately, an entrée, a main and a dessert come to £56.00, against £48.95 for the same three courses on the table d'hôte, and the set dishes are the ones the restaurant is known for. The à la carte earns its place when you want the Dover sole or the rack of lamb, or when one person at the table only fancies a main course and a shared plate of frites.

In good weather the best seats are outside. The restaurant describes its outdoor area as extensive, and a 2022 Arbuturian review put it at about 45 covers spread along the pavement onto Orange Square, the small triangle where Ebury Street meets Pimlico Road. Under the plane trees it feels more like a village square in France than a junction in SW1, so if you want to sit outside, ask for the terrace when you book.

For groups, there is a semi-private area downstairs that seats up to 14 people, useful for birthdays and family celebrations. Larger parties are handled through the restaurant's group bookings page. Seasonal menus appear through the year, including a New Year's Eve dinner priced at £90.00, so it is worth checking the downloads on the official site for the menu that matches your date.

The name itself is a nod to French food history. Poule au pot, a hen simmered whole with vegetables in broth, is the dish Henri IV of France is said to have wished every peasant could eat on Sunday. Here it arrives as the house signature, served the way the restaurant has cooked it since it opened, and it is the obvious order on a first visit.

Reservations are made online through Favourite Table, linked from the official reservations page. You can also email info@pouleaupot.co.uk for larger or more complicated bookings. Friday and Saturday evenings are the obvious choice for a date, so book those well ahead; a weekday lunch is the easier way to get a table at short notice.

If you are planning a proposal or an anniversary, say so when you book and ask for a corner nook in the main room. The nooks inside are the reason the restaurant keeps topping romance polls. If you would rather be outside, aim for a mild day in late spring or early autumn and book the terrace for lunch.

Ebury Street has a musical claim to fame. In 1764 an eight-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived on this street with his family from 5 August to 24 September, and a few doors down from the restaurant a plaque marks the house where he is said to have written his first symphony. The address sits on what was then known as Fivefields Row, when this part of London was still semi-rural.

On Orange Square itself stands Philip Jackson's bronze statue of the young Mozart, right beside the restaurant's terrace. From there, walk north up Ebury Street towards Victoria or turn west along Pimlico Road, a street of interior designers and antique dealers, for a slow ten-minute stroll to Sloane Square and the Tube.

La Poule au Pot, 231 Ebury Street, London SW1W 8UT. Nearest Tube: Sloane Square (District and Circle lines). Table d'hôte: £41.95 for two courses, £48.95 for three. Service: 12½% optional gratuity added. Bookings online via Favourite Table or by phone. Downstairs semi-private area for up to 14 guests.

For a first visit, take the table d'hôte, order the onion soup and the chicken in a pot, and finish with tarte tatin. Then step out onto Orange Square and say goodnight to the bronze Mozart before walking to Sloane Square.