Otto's

Otto's occupies a modest dining room on Gray's Inn Road, where Otto Tepasse and Elin Hansen have run a classical French restaurant since 2011. The kitchen is known for canard à la presse: a whole duck is carved, its carcass crushed tableside in a nineteenth-century silver press, and the extracted juices reduced into a sauce served with the breast meat in two courses. It is one of the last places in London still performing the ritual in full. Beyond the duck, the menu holds a tight repertoire of onion soup, quenelles and soufflés, delivered with old-fashioned formality rather than spectacle. The room seats around thirty, with white tablecloths and a wine list weighted towards Burgundy and the Loire. Reservations are advised, as the duck is limited to a set number of birds each night.