Casse Croute

Casse Croute

109 Bermondsey St, London SE1 3XB

££

Casse Croute is an authentic, family-run French Restaurant on the equally quaint and trendy Bermondsey Street. With a daily-changing menu, you know the food is fresh, and the checked tabletops and wooden chaired interior would have even the most well-travelled fooled that they may in fact have stumbled into Paris' left-bank’s Latin Quarter.

This little gem had been long-awaited on my list, saved for a ‘romantic special occasion’. It looked noteworthy in an unpretentious way, just the kind of place you could casually wish away an afternoon in, especially with their alfresco tables primed for people-watching. The time eventually came around to pay a visit on my 5-year anniversary, the very weekend before covid meant that we all shut up shop again for a month of the national lockdown.

We arrived painfully on time, to a packed-out restaurant with all the windows open (probably to deter covid spreading, but it was really freezing…) The service was decidedly French (the table wasn’t ready and they looked displeased to see us), but I didn’t really mind as it added to the Frenchness of the place. We sat down and ordered a bottle of Red, of which name I can’t remember but it was probably the cheapest as you know it will still be good, followed by the Fish Soup (£7.5) and Crispy Pork Cheeks (£8.5) to start. The fish soup packed a punch of flavour and came served with some crunchy pieces of bread topped with cheese and a pot of something which resembled hollandaise sauce – way to make even fish soup indulgent. The pork cheeks were encased in a thin layer of perfectly crisp Filo pastry, which gave way to a rich and juicy pork interior, it was served alongside some welcoming fresh leaves which helped to cut through the naughtiness a little.

Admittedly I was devastated when I saw that the chateaubriand was crossed off the hand-written, blackboard menu, and was puzzled at the prospect of ‘faux filet’ – “are they really going to serve fake meat in a place like this?” Luckily, I should have had more faith – the faux filet was in fact a cut of real life, 100% cow, and was served alongside dauphinoise potatoes and green beans (£21.5). The waitress TOLD me that this only came rare, “great, just how I like it” I said, whilst imagining the just-slaughtered, still-mooing cow that would arrive on my plate. As imagined, the beef was more blue than rare, but was SO DARN TASTY all the same. With generous hunks of sea salt, creamy potatoes and swimming in a deliciously thin bearnaise sauce – you can’t really go wrong. Tom went for the duck and pork cassoulet (£20.5), an incredibly warming, filling and generous burst of meaty deliciousness, albeit a little too rich for me. It came in a small pot, packed full to the brim, and not even with my help did we end up finishing it.

After the mains we were so stuffed that we couldn’t contemplate desert but ordered two coffees to help us with the cycle home. The bill came to just over £100, which was decent given the quality and fact we’d had a bottle and 4 plates. Casse Croute is a delightful spot that will impress out-of-towners and London vets alike. It IS pricey for what it is, but it promises to deliver homemade, genuine French cuisine which is both lavish, warming, and simply wouldn’t travel well: it is places like this that are truly missed during lockdown.

OVERALL RATING: ****

https://cassecroute.co.uk