The French House

The French House is a pub with a long memory. It was the unofficial London HQ of the Free French during the war, and it remains a steadfast refuser of certain modern conveniences: no mobile calls, no television, no pints — halves only, so the place stays properly sociable.

General de Gaulle is said to have drafted part of his famous 1940 broadcast in this building, and rather than trade heavily on that history with plaques and merchandise, the pub has simply kept behaving the way it always did, which is its own quieter tribute to it.

The Room

A single narrow ground-floor bar, photographs four-deep on every wall, and a small dining room upstairs with seven tables. Downstairs is standing-room-heavy on a busy evening, tightly packed in the way an old Soho pub genuinely should be, while the upstairs dining room offers a calmer, more considered version of the same building.

The photographs covering every wall aren’t curated for effect — they’ve simply accumulated over decades, and reading them properly is its own way to spend twenty minutes at the bar.

Dean Street sits at the heart of old theatrical and literary Soho, and the pub’s clientele over the decades has reflected that — actors, writers and musicians have all passed through and left some trace on the walls, whether a signed photograph or simply an anecdote regulars still repeat at the bar.

Seven tables upstairs means the dining room rarely feels anonymous, and the same small kitchen serving both floors keeps the whole building’s identity coherent rather than split between a “proper pub” downstairs and a disconnected restaurant above it.

What to Order

Downstairs: a half of bitter, a glass of Ricard, wine by the glass — ordering a full pint is a minor faux pas here, and the half-measures policy is enforced as a point of principle rather than a suggestion. Upstairs, Neil Borthwick’s menu runs to duck rillettes, grilled fish, and an iron pot of something braised, changing regularly enough that regulars rarely know exactly what the braise will be before they arrive.

The duck rillettes are the most consistent starter on the upstairs menu, rich and generously portioned in a way that suits sharing across the table rather than as an individual course. Downstairs, ordering Ricard specifically is something of a nod to the pub’s Free French history, and regulars who know the room tend to order it rather than a more predictable pint substitute, treating it as a small act of respect for the building’s past.

The Drinks List

Restrained, Gallic-leaning, with an unusually strong vermouth selection — a detail that rewards regulars willing to order something other than the obvious half of bitter.

What You Will Pay

Downstairs, three halves and a glass of wine: around £25. Upstairs, three courses and a half-bottle: around £55 per person, fair value for cooking this considered above a pub this unpretentious.

The Verdict

Take a quiet afternoon off. Go at 16:00, drink halves, stay until something happens — this is a pub built for exactly that kind of open-ended, unplanned afternoon, not a quick single drink on the way somewhere else. This review’s 4-star mark is mostly about atmosphere and history rather than the upstairs dining room, which is good rather than essential — worth knowing if you’re weighing whether to book a table or just prop up the bar.

What’s Being Said

A pub that has said no to nearly every modern convenience and, against the odds, hasn’t dated a day for it. Refusing pints, television and phone calls could easily read as a gimmick in a lesser room; here it simply reads as consistency, upheld for long enough that nobody questions it anymore.

The half-pints-only rule in particular has become something close to a house philosophy rather than an eccentric restriction — the idea being that a pub is meant for conversation and company, and a full pint tends to slow a drinker into their own corner of the bar rather than keep the room properly sociable.

Whether or not that reasoning fully explains the policy’s origins, it’s become part of what regulars actively defend about the place, rather than merely tolerate. The rating above reflects a pub defending an eccentric-sounding policy for a genuinely sociable reason, not for its own sake.