Gallic eatery Bouchon Fourchette scoops Waitrose award

Owner Dorothee Gaschignard. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

A restaurant sandwiched between a laundromat and a chicken shop at one of the most unpleasant traffic intersections in Hackney has been named the Best Value for Money eatery in the UK.

Bouchon Fourchette, which opened in February on Mare Street at the junction with Well Street, received the honour last month from Waitrose’s Good Food Guide.

But achieving such an accolade isn’t just a question of value for money, but value for time.

There is plenty of reasonably-priced mediocrity out there, and more than enough examples of atmosphere trumping quality, or prideless service delivered in high-concept dining rooms – lethal combinations that leave everyone feeling non-plussed.

Avoiding this trap in an overcrowded restaurant scene is no small challenge.

For Bouchon’s Nantes-born owner Dorothee Gaschignard, the secret is in the business model.

“The design, the service, the food and the price must be attractive,” she says.

A combination of carefully-chosen specialty items balance a simple base of ingredients – sausages shipped in from Toulouse mingle with humble lentils; saucisson from Brittany and snails from Burgundy and “fresh, approachable wines” at £3 a glass.

Bouchon Fourchette’s ‘working lunch’ deal is a highlight that draws a devoted set of local working stiffs in search of a reason to slow down.

Due to its subtle powers of suggestion – it comes with wine and a leisurely, no-rush setting – taking an hours’ break and drinking at lunch seem less like a slackers’ MO than just the right thing to do – not least because the house Chardonnay is always, always, the perfect temperature (four degrees).

The house red, a Grenache-Syrah blend, goes down easy on cold days as well.

At £7.99 a head, you can choose between a traditional croque madame, a warming cauliflower and celeriac gratin, hearty Toulouse sausage and lentils, goat’s cheese and aubergine mille-feuille (dish of a thousand layers), among others, with a brown bag of perfect frites (swap for salad if you’re on a health kick).

After six years living in Hackney, Gaschignard noticed a hole in the market for a French bistro.

But nothing about this place is a cliché of the Café Rouge persuasion – no sign of faux-rusted mirrors with stuff written on them, Chat Noir posters or other signs of Parisian life.

It is more like a 1960s diner – oblong tables with skinny legs, low yellowy lighting and just one perennial sign of French cuisine: there is always a baguette on the cutting table in the middle of the dining room.

Order it as a side and it comes with the most delicious pat of sea-salted butter.

Cooking has always been an obsession for Gaschignard’s family.

Having grown up reading cook books for fun and watching her mother make cote de boeuf (rib of beef to be shared), her family always talked about opening a restaurant that “recreated that sense of warmth”.

But Dorothee is the first Gaschignard to actually do it.

Combining a French foodie upbringing with fifteen years’ experience in London’s fast-paced, high-volume service industry, we have a place where sitting down to eat is “a major event, but also a normal, natural thing”.

Gaschignard was unusually lucky in the process of opening the place – it was “meant to be every step of the way”, she says.

Still, nothing is taken for granted.

The chips may come in a paper bag, but Dorothee is the type of manager who is always walking through the dining room, straightening cutlery.

The value for money award, she says, is “the best award we could have received” because “it summarises everything we do”.