“Do you even Auberge de Chassignolles, mec?” The shrine to country cooking west of Lyon is responsible for much of what modern French food looks like in London right now, and alum Seb Myers is responsible for some of the best, at Planque, in Haggerston. Effortful attempts at being “just like Paris” across the city should look to Myers’s confident, complex, satisfying range of rich yet bright dishes, whether a chilled melon soup popped through with trout roe; a pork collar dressed up all Provençal, or spectacularly low-key desserts based on seasonal fruits.

Actualment, Monsieur Otto n’est pas français – mais Otto’s est possiblé le restaurant plus français dans tout le cité. Regard, le canard à la presse! Le pigeon d’Anjou! Le quenelle de poisson Lyonnaise! Le menu est completement en français aussi. Merveilleux. Encore de Côtes du Rhône, s’îl-vous plait. Ou est la plume de ma tante?

Sorry to wheel out a cursed restaurant word, but Noizé is probably one of the city’s more underrated restaurants — if elegant classicisme is the would-be diner’s thing. Snacks, starters, mains, desserts; gougères, rabbit lasagana, glazed veal cheeks, chocolate sorbet; oui, oui, oui, oui.

Cassoulet, the pinnacle of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cooking, is what draws the crowds to this temple of the porky, punchy food of Southwestern France. There’s also a foie gras and truffle burger, and something called “piggy treats” — an assemblage of Bayonne ham, sausage, black pudding saucisson and pate. It’s a starter. This, it should go without saying, is not the place for a light lunch: the duck confit with potato cake will render all but the most committed eaters insensible for the rest of the afternoon.

Alex Jackson’s Sardine has dearly departed the city and thus this map, but fans can find his French country cooking in a new guise at Noble Rot’s Soho second album. The centrepiece, et le plat le plus français, is a roast chicken with morel mushrooms, served in a gorgeously nutty sauce made from vin jaune. A classical chocolate mousse and a choux bun with tojaki jelly and duck parfait as bookends, and diners are away.

The website looks steam-powered, and the decor is best described as Hogarth reimagined by Christian Grey, but L’Escargot’s still got it. It was given a sprucing up in 2014, but the menu is still much as it was when it first opened in 1927 — lobster bisque, snails flambéed with Ricard, tournedos Rossini. The three course prix fixe, available from midday right through to 7pm, is one of the most civilised ways to dispose of a £20 note in Soho. 

Meat-avoiders have traditionally gone hungry in French restaurants — an omelette aux fines herbes and some frisée dumped on the side of the plate is often is good as it gets. Give thanks, then, for Gauthier, which takes up three floors of a Regency townhouse on Romilly Street. Chef-patron Alexis Gauthier was an early and keen advocate of vegetable-first cooking, and his two entirely vegan menus (complete with tartares, veloutés and fondants) feel like labours of love rather than bandwagon-jumping. Carnivores, of course, are amply catered for too. 

This place has lost none of its sense of occasion. Marble and velvet abound, but prices — as has been widely noted — are more Cafe Rouge than Cafe Royal: the £10.95 prix fixe menu is a minor miracle in this bit of W1. The ile flottante, bobbing in pink praline-flecked creme anglaise, is up there with anything you’d find in Saint-Germain. Other members of the family also look lovingly across the Channel — Colbert’s croque monsieurs deserve an honourable mention, and Bellanger has a nice line in Alsacienne tartes flambées on Islington Green. 

John Williams uses The Ritz restaurant as a shrine to Escoffier-inspired classics, all of them executed flawlessly: Ballotine of duck liver with peach and hazelnut, new-season lamb, Bresse duck with beetroot and pickled blackberries, an ethereal apricot souffle.

Pique-Nique’s petit adelphe scratches up its menu on a blackboard in the language of its culinary ancestor. That is to say: on l’écrit en français. It changes daily, and might encompass a tartlet of boudin noir; rabbit leg with a risotto; and a highly classical millefeuille.

A sort of mock-Tudor Tardis plonked in the middle of a park, Pique-Nique may rank in the top 10 of London’s weirdest-looking restaurants, but it’s also one of its finest purveyors of French food. There’s an a la carte menu (written entirely en Français), but go for the multi-course menu autour du poulet de Bresse, which makes excellent use of everything but the bird’s beak. Over the road, big brother Casse-Crôute remains a masterclass in Gallic charm, with tables straight out of Lady and the Tramp, and a menu rich in mustard and cream. 

When Henry Harris’ Racine served its last veal chop in 2015, the torch was ferried down the road to Medlar. Although there are a couple of Italian flourishes — a raviolo here, a burrata there — the menu’s framework is solidly, classically Gallic. Indeed, white onion velouté with roast foie gras, pistachios, confit quail legs and aged comté gougères must surely be the French-est dish in London, if not the world. Oh, and the chips (triple cooked, as advertised) come with Bearnaise. Not cheap, but magnifique for a splurge. 

Look, if this place was in W1 it would be booked up months in advance. As it is, there’s a reasonable chance of a call made on Monday securing a table over the weekend, despite there only being 28 seats (most of them are at the bar, overlooking the busy kitchen). Husband-and-wife team Yoann and Sujin’s menu is set modern French with nods towards South Korea: previous dishes have included hake with grilled endive, kohlrabi, fennel and orange, and matcha rice pudding with caramelised pistachio. It’s mind-bogglingly good value, and the smoked butter that comes with the bread has a cult-like following.

This buzzy Brixton bistrot is a very fine example of how London, and its myriad dining influences which wax and wane, is refracting “French food” through its being, well, not in France. Margaux Aubry & Joe Sharratt put out dishes like crab with yuzu and peanut and a duck kiev with wild garlic butter and shimeji with a hospitable but breezy confidence, alongside a largely nu-French wine list.