Richoux: A Considered Return
Richoux feels like the sort of place you recognise before you can place it.
Outside, there’s the constant movement of Oxford Street — shoppers, hotel guests, familiar faces heading in and out of Broadcasting House next door, the kind of people who work nearby, always on their way somewhere else.
Inside, something else entirely: a room designed for staying put. It’s an unusually good place to sit and watch the city without quite being in it.
Richoux is one of those names that has quietly followed London for more than a century, reappearing in different forms as the city has changed around it. Founded in 1909 on Baker Street by French émigrés, it began life not as a restaurant, but as a pâtisserie and confectioner. For much of the twentieth century – and certainly through the 1990s – it was best known as a tea room and café, valued for pastries, cakes and light meals rather than formal dining. It was somewhere to meet for coffee, to linger over macarons, to sit without agenda.
Only later did Richoux begin to lean more decisively towards brasserie territory. Over the years, and across different locations – Knightsbridge, Mayfair, St John’s Wood among them – it shifted shape repeatedly, reflecting changes in ownership, fashion and what “French dining” in London was supposed to mean at the time.
That sense of adaptation is part of its character. Richoux has never been a single fixed idea. It has always evolved alongside the city, responding to changing habits rather than imposing a set identity of its own.
Its latest incarnation, opened in late summer 2025 at Langham Place, feels less like a revival and more like a careful reassertion of that original intent.
The visual tone sets this immediately. The brand’s traditional red has softened into blue, signalling something calmer, more assured, less inclined to announce itself. Outside, the building itself is fairly unremarkable — traditional brasserie styling, nothing to fixate on. Inside, however, the atmosphere shifts completely.
The room is instinctively comfortable. Counter seating, tables and deep banquettes offer different ways of inhabiting the space, depending on how visible or discreet you want to be. One corner feels public, animated by the constant movement outside the BBC; another feels quietly withdrawn from the street altogether. You can sit at the counter and watch the choreography of service, or settle into a booth and disappear.
Food follows the same logic. Classic French brasserie dishes sit alongside wood-fired cooking, with an emphasis on generosity rather than spectacle. There is ceremony — the quiet theatre of tableside preparation, patisserie trolleys and classical service rituals – but it never tips into nostalgia. These elements feel purposeful rather than decorative, part of how the restaurant works rather than how it presents itself.
This is everyday dining, done with care. It works as well for a quick coffee as it does for a three-course dinner. You can arrive alone, with friends, on a working lunch or for a long evening, and feel equally comfortable with whoever happens to be seated either side of you.
In that sense, Richoux occupies what its owners describe as a “sweet spot”: delivering quality and sophistication without being intimidating. Elevated, but not self-conscious. Polished, but not performative.
Richoux has lived several lives, and this is not its first reinvention. What makes this iteration appealing is its confidence in what it offers: a place that works, that feels generous and comfortable, and that understands how people actually want to use restaurants today.
There are ambitions beyond London, with international expansion said to be in motion. For now, though, Richoux feels well placed exactly where it is – familiar without being dated, refined without being stiff, and quietly in tune with the city it has been following for more than a century.
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Luxury Restaurant Guide brings together a collection of restaurants that represent British hospitality at its finest, offering members thoughtful privileges and reasons to return.
Richoux is currently extending the following privilege to members:
Members and their dining guests receive 50% off their food bill until throughout February, followed by 25% off their food bill thereafter, when dining Tuesday to Friday, all day. See details.
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