Bouchon Racine, London: ‘I am a huge, dribbling admirer’ – restaurant review

‘The menu is a scribbled blackboard of true loveliness, which changes depending on what’s available’: Bouchon Racine. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer

Bouchon Racine, 66 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6BP (020 7253 3368). Starters £8.50-£16.50, mains £17.50-£48, desserts £6.50-£9, wines from £25.50

There are film critics who, presented with a Martin Scorsese movie, can be guaranteed to rave. There are theatre critics who will be bucket-full of puppyish love when writing about any musical by Stephen Sondheim. This is the restaurant review equivalent. The only argument for me not reviewing the newly opened Bouchon Racine is that I am a huge, dribbling admirer of all the people involved and all the food they serve. In other words, because I was stone cold certain in advance that the restaurant would be very good indeed and because I was proved absolutely right, I shouldn’t say so as I have already shown myself to be compromised, courtesy of my deep experience and overwhelming, impeccable good taste. Yeah, right.