Bouchon Fourchette – review
La Bouchon Fourchette
Bouchon Fourchette brings a spoonful of classy French cooking to the clattering rumble of Mare Street.
Launched by Nantes-born Hackney local Dorothee, the restaurant is half open to the warm sounds of kitchen bustle – without making it impossible to talk to the person sitting at your elbow.
We kicked off with some lovely mackerel rilletes – fat smoky scoops of fish, herbs and tiny pink pepper corns with crunchy wafers of cumin bread to scoop them up and some bright tangy salad leaves. I didn’t go for the snails or the bone marrow on toast, but I wish I had because they both looked great.
The mains were like being folded in a warm buttery hug. We had the coq-au-vin, which comes with big bowl of the smoothest, most excellent crème fraiche potato puree – and the chicken melted off the bone.
I had a fine piece of plaice shallow fried in nothing but garlicky butter sauce and served with salty little bundles of green beans wrapped in bacon. We had sides of salad for some tenuous gesture to healthy eating and a little casserole dish of bright green spinach luxuriating in more butter and garlic.
It would have been frankly rude to turn down Dorothee’s mother’s chocolate cake and, as my friend said, this is a serious chocolate cake. Dark and dense and bitter and sweet, it’s no prissy ganache.
The cheeses were as good as you’d expect them to be from a French kitchen. The best was a molten, nutty Eclat de Nuit that you had to spoon onto the bread. The harder Comte and then a blue goats cheese and a camembert-style one were also good.
Its menu is not ambitious, but the quality of its ingredients and the finesse of the cooking means Bouchon Fourchette gracefully executes classic French dishes without a fuss.
The staff are wonderful and with a glass of house wine for just £3 and mains for around £10 as well as an £8 lunch deal, it’s well worth a visit.
171 Mare Street, E8 3RH
0208 986 2702