Where the Chefs Eat asks your favourite chefs for their top restaurants in cities across the world. For this edition, we sit down with Henry Harris.
Henry Harris is “living his best life,” he tells me happily. Head chef and co-owner of the insanely popular Bouchon Racine, the last three years since he opened the Farringdon hotspot with partner David Strauss have been, he says, “my most favourite three years of cooking and restaurant ownership. I’ve got a lovely family. I’ve got a great business partner. I’ve got a great restaurant where we’re doing exactly what we want on our terms, while at the same time doing everything to make everyone who comes in feel as loved and valued as possible.”
For those lucky enough to have dined at the 40-cover space, up a steep staircase above The Three Compasses pub, his London bouchon is dearly loved and with good reason. Having owned Racine in Knightsbridge for many years, Harris has reinserted himself onto the London dining scene with great aplomb since opening Bouchon Racine. It’s his very own version of the quintessential Lyon restaurants that serve hearty, meat-heavy cuisine (usually featuring offal) in a rustic, convivial environment. Harris was trained in his early years under British great Simon Hopkinson at Hilaire and Bidendum, but he quickly forged his own identity in the kitchen and is now very much associated with his recreation of the Lyonnaise restaurants that are neither bistro nor restaurant but sit somewhere uniquely in between.
It is astonishing how many chefs I have interviewed for these pages who, when discussing London, give me Bouchon Racine, without hesitation, as a favourite, and yet Harris was nervous about opening it back in 2022. “I had had 13 great years at the original Racine, which I loved, and it was right to sell it when I did. But a friend of mine told me that I was really underestimating how much people missed it. I had real night terrors before we opened [Bouchon Racine], worrying that nobody would want to come. There are younger, fitter chefs in London who are spearheading a nascent revival of French cooking.” But, come they did and getting a reservation nowadays is nigh on impossible, (though he advises me to “go analogue” and try calling rather than booking online).
The restaurant itself feels as though it has been there forever, dotted as it is with “two illustrations that David Remfry gave us, a chalkboard menu freshly written each day, and kitchen equipment that was donated. It was worn and tested, and each piece already had its own story. We did it all on an absolute shoestring, which is why the plates don’t match and the cutlery is all different, and we did a lot of the painting ourselves.” The result is charming, authentic, and very welcoming, everything Harris loves about Lyonnaise bouchons. “They do food of a certain style,” he tells me, “and it’s about regional ingredients showcased at their best. In a traditional bouchon, the patron is the one who normally welcomes you. And the other one cooks the meal in the kitchen. You feel like you’re in their home.”
