Franco's

Franco’s has been serving Jermyn Street since 1945, making it one of the longest continuously-operating Italian restaurants in London, and the gallery-and-club crowd it draws hasn’t changed the kitchen’s ambitions one bit in that time.

This is a restaurant that predates almost every fashionable Italian opening in London by decades, and it has done so not by freezing itself in a nostalgic pose but by simply continuing to cook well, year after year, for a clientele that would notice immediately if it slipped.

The Room

A warm, traditional Italian dining room, comfortably formal without being stiff — the kind of space where a regular can have their usual table and a first-time visitor still feels properly looked after. Wood panelling and soft lighting do the work that a louder, more fashionable Italian restaurant might hand over to exposed brick and Edison bulbs; here the register is older-money without being cold about it.

Lunch service in particular has a distinct rhythm, driven by the St James’s gallery and auction-house crowd that treats the room as an extension of their working day. By evening the pace slows and the crowd shifts toward a more relaxed, off-duty version of the same clientele.

What to Order

Fillet of John Dory with broad beans and celeriac purée is the kitchen’s most consistently excellent plate — a fish course treated with real technique rather than simplicity mistaken for restraint. The pistachio-and-mustard-crusted rack of lamb is the heartier order, a dish built for a slower lunch rather than a quick one, and worth requesting a touch pink if you want the crust doing its proper job.

The fresh morel risotto, when it’s in season, is the dish regulars specifically wait for and ask about the moment it reappears on the menu each year — order it the day you see it listed, because the season is short and the kitchen doesn’t pad it out with dried mushrooms once fresh ones are gone.

Ask the waiter directly whether it’s currently on, since it tends to disappear from the printed menu the moment the delivery runs out.

The Drinks List

A confident, mostly-Italian list with real depth, chosen by people who clearly know the producers rather than just the regions — there’s enough range here to go well beyond the obvious Chianti-and-Barolo defaults if you ask for a steer. The by-the-glass options are generous enough for a lunch that doesn’t want to commit to a full bottle.

What You Will Pay

Around £60–90 per person, which for eighty years of continuous operation on one of London’s most expensive streets is a genuinely fair number — you are not paying a heritage premium so much as a reflection of the ingredients and the room. A lighter lunch built around a single course and a glass of wine sits comfortably under that; the rack of lamb with a proper bottle pushes toward the top.

The Verdict

A reliable lunch spot for the St James’s gallery crowd, and just as good for dinner once the working day is done — book ahead if you want the morel risotto specifically, since the kitchen won’t hold it back once the season passes. It’s a room that rewards becoming a semi-regular rather than a one-off visitor, since the staff clearly remember faces and preferences the way a genuinely old neighbourhood restaurant should.

What’s Being Said

Eighty years on Jermyn Street and the morel risotto is still the dish people ask about first, which says as much about the kitchen’s consistency as any accolade could. Restaurants this old tend to be remembered for their history rather than their cooking; Franco’s is one of the rarer cases where regulars talk about what’s actually on the plate before they mention how long it’s been there.

That’s a harder reputation to earn than simply surviving eight decades on an expensive street, and it’s the one that actually matters. That’s the case this review keeps coming back to: eighty years in, the kitchen is still the actual headline, not the history around it.