Bouchon Racine

Henry Harris ran Racine on the Brompton Road from 2002 until it closed in 2015. He reopened in November 2022 as Bouchon Racine, on the first floor of the Three Compasses, a Farringdon pub he took on with Dave Strauss. The room was the pub's old function room. It now holds painted panelling, framed prints and porcelain, brass sconces, old radiators and bare floorboards, and it has its own street entrance beside the pub door. A glazed veranda with a glass roof runs along the front, above Cowcross Street.

The menu is chalked on blackboards and changes daily. Chris Handley, head chef at the original Racine, cooks alongside Harris: escargots, steak tartare, rabbit with mustard sauce, côte de boeuf for two, and the crème caramel that Giles Coren's review made famous. The wine list is French. The National Restaurant Awards named Bouchon Racine their National Restaurant of the Year for 2026 and placed it first on their list, and the MICHELIN Guide carries it as an inspectors' favourite.

Tables are taken to a maximum of six and bookings open thirty days ahead, so anything larger here is a hire rather than a reservation. Neither floor publishes a hire offer, and both can be taken by arrangement. The pub keeps its own kitchen counter and trades to midnight from Thursday to Saturday, which lets a dinner upstairs carry on downstairs.