An endlessly magnetic inner-city charmer that remixes the Gallic hits in the very best of ways.
If you open a bistro, then you should probably know how to blitz up duck-liver parfait, fry frites and pan-roast the poisson du jour. Chef Liam Atkinson and his team do these things extremely well, but it’s the balance, brightness and irreverent streak they bring to the cooking at Le Rebelle that makes it crackle. Take the parfait, which gets sour-sweet lift from a dab of Cumberland sauce; those frites, drenched in a subversive parsley sauce with escargots and a boat of pitch-perfect béarnaise riding shotgun.
More always seems to be more here, and so it should be when that fish of the day arrives crisp-skinned and firm-fleshed, with school prawns to heighten the crunch and stonkingly rich Champagne butter sauce to take it even further. Thankfully, there’s lots of light amid the shade, be it in the acid that ripples through the Bandol, Burgundy and Beaujolais on the savvy wine list or the heaving scoops of fruit-forward house sorbet that bring things to a close.
More always seems to be more here, and so it should be when that fish of the day arrives crisp-skinned and firm-fleshed, with school prawns to heighten the crunch and stonkingly rich Champagne butter sauce to take it even further.
All the while, attentive staff keep pace in the long and slender tiered room, doling out sage advice, soliciting feedback and doing their part to keep the winning streak alive. Mission accomplished.
