Cafe Rouge – Kingsway

I really enjoyed this place directly across from St. Paul’s Cathedral, a great location in the city. It is a nice French joint that has wonderful croissants, coffee, a great breakfast of eggs, sausage potatoes. This is my first time here so I can’t offer much in way of the menu offerings.
The best was the waitress and I should have gotten her name. She was absolutely delightful and though I was funny. (Always a plus, doesn’t happen often) I’ll be back again…

A friend and I were actually planning on going to all bar one for a breakfast catch up but after the chef was a no show we popped over the road to café rouge.
Choice is quite good — not so many savoury options but I always fancy something sweet for breakfast anyway. I ordered a grapefruit juice and pain Perdu with caramelised peach, crème fraîche, blueberries and strawberries and my friend ordered a mini English. She said she enjoyed but I thought it looked average. Mine however was really yum! Fruit was nice and fresh, eggy brioche was delish and the peach was really nice and caramelised! Would recommend and would go back again for breakfast if I had to choose between this and other chains like all bar one, pret etc!
Only 3* as menu could be better, ambience was ok and it wasn’t amazing value! £10 for drink and breakfast.

Fantastic staff. I left my corporate credit card here after breakfast one day and went back hoping it had been found. Not only had they found it and put it to one side in a clearly labelled envelope, they had tried to notify me by email. I was very impressed by how seriously they took the situation and how well they handled it. They even gave me a cappuccino on the house!
The breakfast was nice too :-)

One of the worst Café Rouge locations, ever. It’s close to LSE for an alternative to the normal lunch options. Yet, with Bill’s just opening across the street, I’d rather go there.
The service is sad. The waiters constantly look like they want to just quit their job as they don’t want to be there… which is rude to patrons.
Ordered the steak and frites for lunch– frites had way too much seasoning on them. Steak arrived almost cold.
Would not recommend to anyone.

I like this Café Rouge as it is spacious (a bit stereo typical in its décor as another reviewer said, but its welcoming enough) and in a very convenient location from where I live due to the Central Line. I had a nice meal in there with my boyfriend however… I really fancied a Cosmopolitan cocktail that day… I don’t drink that much, but the urge was there, so I asked the young man at the bar for one.
He didn’t know how to make it so I politely helped him out, but unfortuantely he didn’t have all of the necessary alcoholic ingredients and offered to make a close version of one. My request annoyed him greatly, so to make himself feel better he insulted me by saying that if he was going to make one it would be expensive., and he said it in such a way as to suggest that I might not be able to afford it!
I thought WOW thats seriously rude. To make matters worse it tasted absolutely vile (he may have spat in for all I know) and charged me… wait for it £18.00 !!!
Yes I kid you not £18.00 for a vile potion.
My boyfriend heard all of this going on and he is not a man to hold back when he is riled or thinks someone is being rude to me, but to his credit he didn’t say anyting, but he was FUMING believe me and I was stressed slightly as I really didn’t want things to go down hill.
This is what I observed while in this CR — Nice location and great building, some staff are really nice and do not feel that being a waiter/​waitress is beneath them, but this young man really did not like it when I asked for something he could not make and he just resented working there.
My advice = GET A JOB YOU LIKE ! !
Simple.

Holborn Branch, You are the weakest link, good bye.
This is one of the bigger café rouge’s I’ve visited, (as opposed to the one in Canterbury) and I’m disappointed.
My entourage (Fine, Friends) and I rolled in for a REEEEAAAALLLY late lunch at 3pm, the restaurant was pretty empty, and I’m guessing the wait staff were pretty tired but STILL, some professionalism, guys?! We waited 20 minutes for our orders to be taken and the food took 30 – 40 minutes to arrive. Terrible.
We’d ordered a Salad, side fries, fishcakes dish, and chicken baguette, the food was just slapdash, the butternut squash salad had no flavour, my squash looked peculiarly like a yellow pepper. (My uni serves better squash for heaps less!) and then we waited, and waited and WAITED for the other dishes to arrive. My chips didn’t arrive as a side, it was a main as I’d almost finished the salad before the other dishes arrived. The chicken baguette was just lazy, white breast meat with a tiny smear of dijon mustard, my friend said it was just bland and horrible. Fishcakes fared a little better, the tartare sauce wasn’t great but the fishcakes were good value, because you got alot of fish in them.
I’m not even sure what was wrong with the kitchen, as other people had arrived before us and ordered, eaten and the ironic part was-​they were the same dishes we ordered! Laughable, just laughable.

I am aware this is a chain, but as far as café chains go this one is decent.
Being in a large group we did have to wait probably longer than usual but that was to be expected. The food I felt was relevant price and though it was yummy you knew it wasn’t that of what you would get in an authentic French restaurant.

I am French, so let me tell you I was expecting a lot.
The decoration is a french stereotype, but it’s quite cute so I won’t comment too much about that.
The service is really, really bad. I went three times, and all those times, they forgot to give me the menu.
I actually had to wait 30 minutes the first time for them to realize I didn’t have a menu and the restaurant was far from packed…
As for the food. It sounds french in every way, but there is something totally wrong about it.
The croque monsieur has the wrong cheese and doesn’t seem to have any bechamel sauce…
As for the coq au vin, which is just one typical french recipe. It was all dried up when it’s supposed to have a nice silky sauce. Very disappointing.
It pretends to be french, but there is nothing french about it — especially if they manage to get the wrong cheese on a croque monsieur…
If you want real french food, I recommend Chez Gérard, it is more expensive, but authentic.

I’m a fan, definitely. I’ve had several good meals at a few of these and never been disappointed.
The chain is good value for money in my book… where else can you get a kir royale for under £4?! The croque monsieur is also tasty and comes with fries and a green salad for like £7 or something. Not too bad, eh?
It’s definitely not the best French cuisine I’ve sampled, but by far my favorite chain restaurant in London.

This chain of French restaurants seems to be slowly taking over London. The interior is unsurprisingly decorated in red and does manage to create a French feel.
I only came here recently for a meal with friends, mainly only because the trustworthy Belgo’s restaurant was too busy. I decided to go for a typically french and usually reliable steak with bearnaise sauce and fries. The meal was good, but not great and the steak was very thin for a French style steak. I then went for a tarte tatin, which is probably my favourite desert of all time. Once again, it is was good but nothing to bragg about. The service was fine as well, but I was quite surprised when we received the bill and the service charge was so high.
All in all, Café Rouge is nice but the word that mostly comes to mind is average. Next time, I think I will stick to my trusty and delicious Belgo’s restaurant.