Weekly Review: Camille (Revisited)

Rebooted wine programme makes it one of the best places for professional lunch.

Since I started this newsletter in March 2024, I’ve written around 75 formal reviews of London-area restaurants, plus about 50 Hits & Misses, and recommendations for another 25 or so places in Margate, Florence, and Paris.

This is the first time I revisit a restaurant that I have formally reviewed and recommended in the past.

Camille was just my 6th review, published in April last year a few weeks after it opened. It was also the scene of the “five noisy men” incident, which helped me connect with the inestimable Nick Lander. Rereading my review a year later, I think it mostly stands up pretty well.

But I always promised myself that I would try to return to a place if it had a major change — especially one which I deemed an improvement.

I’m happy to report that’s exactly what has happened at Camille.

For context, you might want to skim my first review:

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In short, I loved the food. Positively adored it. Indeed, in a year of amazing new French-inspired places in London that include Café Francois, Cloth, Cocochine, and Josephine Bouchon, I rate Camille’s food offering as the best of the bunch.

The problem was the wine.

It was awful. So bad, in fact, that it undermined the food experience.

And that’s a big problem, especially in French cuisine where the wine plays such a vital complementary role.

I returned to Camille on a recent Friday with a new friend who hadn’t yet been, a little nervous about what we might find.

On first glance, the food looked as inviting as it had on my first visit.

But the wine list was transformed.

Our wonderful waitress, taking note of my positive noises, rushed over to explain that a new sommelier had been in place for a couple of months.

Some nods towards the trendy “natural” wines of the original list remained. But there were good choices, too. Brilliant, classic Burgundy from innovative producers like Sylvain Pataille. Stunning, well-made choices from lesser known regions like the Jura.

I ordered a bottle of Pataille’s fabulous Marsannay and relaxed, confident that all would be well.

And it was. Indeed, it was far better than that.

Raw Orkney scallop with sriracha sauce and a dash of preserved lemon juice. Winner.

We opened with raw orkney scallops backed by a hit of preserved lemon and spicy sriracha sauce. Our other snack was a plate of Pevensey blue and St. Helena cheeses. Fantastic with the excellent glass of fizz we’d started on.

Veal sweetbreads and quail made for an epic round of starters

For proper starters, we shared a perfect little stuffed quail, adorned with vine leaves. There was also an outrageously good choux bun, overflowing with Dorset crab. And finally, veal sweetbreads, which won my award for best dish of the day, served with an immaculate, slightly sweet, rich-as-gold veal au poivre sauce.

For mains, we dug into Onglet with bone marrow and anchovy plus, for good measure, a saddleback pork chop, and some potato pavé.

Mains included Onglet and incredible pork chop, plus potatoes

The chef behind Camille’s incredible food is Elliot Hashtroudi, who trained at St. John, among other places. In an interview, he explained Camille’s origin story:

Clare and Tom [the duo behind Duck Soup, among others] contacted me and said: ‘We’re opening a restaurant, we’ve seen what you’ve been cooking, we’d love to meet you.’

We had a nice little chat. They told me that they’d fallen in love with some old Pierre Koffmann books and wanted to create a French bistro, taking the name from his grandma, Camille.

Then I pitched them my idea: French regional cooking, whole carcass, regenerative farms, 90 to 100 per cent British ingredients, but cooking it in a French way, really expressing the little niches and intricacies of France rather than focusing on Lyon like a lot of great restaurants do. And they were instantly like: ‘Love that. See you next month. Let’s open a restaurant.’

It’s a wonderful vision, and I love how Hashtroudi’s ideas find their own niche among the other new players on the French scene: Cafe François for “dirty, Montreal French.” Josephine Bouchon for precisely the kind of Lyonnaise experience that Hashtroudi is avoiding. Leaving Camille to explore the countryside, especially Gascony, which Koffman adored.

When it came to our Onglet and our pork chop, Hashtroudi’s many talents seemed at their zenith. The work he does with British farmers to find the best animals comes through on the plate. The cooking and seasoning were perfect. Nothing gets in the way of the experience he is creating.

We paired these with a lovely red Burgundy, also from Sylvain Pataille, chosen from the by-the-glass list.

For dessert, there was a stunning chocolate and pistachio tart as well as a Pernod parfait with fresh cherries.

The biggest danger about this sort of lunch is the compulsive need for a nap afterwards. Not even a double espresso could hold a snooze at bay.

But I am very happy to report that Camille must now be considered one of the best places in London for a professional lunch.

With its commitment to British produce, the nose-to-tail vision of chef Hashtroudi, a brilliant wine list, and a buzzy location at the heart of Borough Market seconds from London Bridge, Camille has become a first-choice spot, and I look forward to spending more time there to see what magical goodies appear on the menu next.

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Quick hit: Bold and modern cooking inspired by the French countryside, with a rebooted wine programme, now among the best places in London for professional lunch.

Details: Booking essential. Borough Market. £££.
Restaurant website. More on Instagram and from Michelin.
Find it on Google Maps. 2-3 Stoney St, London SE1 9AA.

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Have you been to Camille lately? Would love to know what you think. Please let me know in the Comments. And please do Subscribe if you haven’t already.