There is a mock-Tudor pavilion in the corner of a Bermondsey park, strung with fairy lights, with the day’s menu chalked on boards hung against the glass. It looks like a tennis clubhouse that has been left on. It is in fact one of the more serious French kitchens in south London, and these days one of the pricier ones.
Pique-Nique opened in May 2017 in the pavilion in Tanner Street Park, just off Bermondsey Street. It comes from the team behind Casse-Croûte, the tiny French bistro that has been on Bermondsey Street since 2013: Hervé Durochat is the owner behind both, Sylvain Soulard is the chef, and Alex Bonnefoy, Casse-Croûte’s maître d’, runs this one. The format is a rôtisserie and a daily menu, with a spit-roast poulet de Bresse as the house dish.
The menu is a board, and it changes
There is no carte to browse before you go. The menu is written up by hand each day and hung on the glass, which you can read from outside the door before you commit, and which means you cannot plan your order on the bus. If you have come for one particular dish you have read about, you are gambling.
The two plates we photographed are almost certainly not going to be on the board when you go, and that is the point rather than a complaint. One night it was filled pasta sitting in a dark, glossy broth under sautéed mushrooms. Another it was duck breast, sliced and finished with flaky salt, fanned over spinach.
Mains come sized for two
This is the thing that catches people out, and nobody tells you. The mains here are built to share, so a table of two orders one and a table of four can get away with two, and a solo diner has a slightly awkward evening ahead. The poulet de Bresse is explicitly a two-person proposition. Harden’s reports one fillet steak en croûte feeding four comfortably, which tells you the scale.
So order fewer mains than instinct tells you and more of the small plates. The classics turn up in some form most weeks: pâté en croûte, escargots, a vol-au-vent, a terrine, and the kind of chocolate pudding that arrives collapsing.
What it actually costs now
This is where Pique-Nique has changed. It opened with a £38 prix fixe and a reputation as the good-value sibling. Harden’s 2026 survey now puts starters around £12.50, mains around £42 and three courses with wine at roughly £91 a head, and the Chateaubriand has been reported at £88. Because the mains are shared, the real bill lands lower than those numbers suggest, but this is no longer a cheap French dinner and it is worth going in knowing that.
The wine is the reason to relax about it. Bonnefoy built the list, it leans hard into small French growers, and the by-the-glass pours are chosen by someone who actually drinks.
Go before six if you want to sit outside
The tables out in the park are the best seats in the place on a warm evening, and they are also the ones you cannot have at dinner. Under the terms of its Southwark licence the outside tables have to be cleared by 6.15pm and the sliding glass doors shut at 6pm, so an evening booking is an indoors booking. Lunch and early evening are when you get the park.
The other trap is the week. Monday and Tuesday are dinner only from 5.30pm, Wednesday to Saturday runs all day, and Sunday is lunch only and the doors close at 5pm. A Sunday evening plan here does not exist.
How it has been received
Time Out gave it four stars and landed on the honest verdict, that the cooking was “good rather than outstanding” while the setting and the staff made the evening. The Infatuation scored it 8.0, the Good Food Guide calls it “good” and describes homely French cooking in an endearingly quirky setting, and it holds a SquareMeal Bronze Award. That is a fair read: the charm is doing real work here alongside the kitchen, and the charm is genuine rather than styled.
The London x London Take: the setting is the best argument for Pique-Nique and it is a very good argument. A lantern-lit mock-Tudor pavilion in a park, a handwritten board, big French plates landing in the middle of the table and a wine list with an actual point of view. The cooking is confident and traditional rather than thrilling, and the prices have crept up to the point where you should book it as an occasion rather than a Tuesday. Come at lunch or early evening so you get the park, order one main between two, and let the wine list do the choosing.
Rating: 4/5
Need to know
- Address: 32 Tanner Street, Bermondsey, London SE1 3LD, in the pavilion in Tanner Street Park
- Nearest station: London Bridge, about ten minutes on foot, or Bermondsey on the Jubilee line
- Website: pique-nique.co.uk
- Opening hours: Monday and Tuesday 5.30pm to 11pm, Wednesday to Saturday noon to 11pm, Sunday noon to 5pm. Kitchen windows are tighter than the door hours
- Booking: via OpenTable or on 020 7403 9549, parties of up to 20
- Price: starters around £12.50, mains around £42 and sized to share, roughly £90 a head for three courses with wine
- Good to know: the outside tables must be cleared by 6.15pm, so book lunch or early evening if you want the park
More French cooking in our guide to the best French restaurants in London, more in the neighbourhood in our guides to Bermondsey restaurants and London Bridge restaurants, and further afield in Borough Market and our pick of south London restaurants.
“The setting is the best argument for it and it is a very good argument. Come at lunch or early evening so you get the park, and order one main between two.”
