Côte Soho

Walk into Côte and you're getting the real deal — white tablecloths, checked napkins, that warm amber glow you get in actual Parisian bistros. It's flanked by Soho's usual chaos (sex shops, neon signs, the works), but inside it's all civilised comfort and French insouciance. The menu reads like a greatest hits of bistro classics: proper steak cooked how you ask for it, mussels that arrive in a proper steel pot, pâté that actually tastes like something. It's not reinventing the wheel, and it doesn't need to. You're paying around £25-35 for a main, which feels almost generous given you're in the heart of tourist Soho. The place has that relaxed confidence of somewhere that's nailed what it does and stopped messing about trying to be clever.