With nine restaurants already scattered across France, La Nouvelle Garde has built its reputation on bringing the classics of the French brasserie to a younger audience. In July, the group brought its popular formula to London, opening Brasserie Olivia – its first international address – on the corner of Sloane Square, with head chef Rachide Sambu Baldé at the helm.
Over lunch and dinner (with breakfast launching soon, a London exclusive), home-style favourites are served in a bustling space designed by long-time collaborators B3 Designers, where the open-fire kitchen, seafood counter and dining room sit beneath Murano-style chandeliers. Ingredients are seasonal and carefully sourced, with butter – a French essential – imported from a family-run cheese dairy in Loire-Atlantique, and a wine list spanning 13 French regions. Parmesan-filled gougères, slow-cooked boeuf bourguignon and praliné Paris-Brest are standouts.
Brasserie Olivia
From October, visitors will be able to continue their evening downstairs for a nightcap. Le Venus Bar will offer an intimate setting to linger after dinner, with mixologist Jennifer Le Nechet and her team serving cocktails with an experimental twist: the menu will include a tzatziki-inspired cucumber and gin milk punch, as well as a tomato-infused Negroni reminiscent of Provence.
Intimate and atmospheric, the 22-seat basement takes inspiration from 1970s Parisian after-hours: warm oak panelling, chartreuse-green velvet chairs, antique objects, and shelves filled with vinyl records, which guests can play on the bar’s turntable to soundtrack their own evening. “Venus Bar is a reflection of the vibrant late-night scene of Paris and we are excited to inject this energy to the centre of Chelsea”, said Charles Perez, who founded La Nouvelle Garde in 2019 with Victor Dubillot.
Le Venus Bar
These two openings come amid a wave of Parisian-inspired bistros and bars bringing a sense of chic, relaxed conviviality to London: Camille opened in Borough Market in 2024, followed by French Society in West Hampstead, while Buvette relocated from Notting Hill to Neal’s Yard last June. Later this month, the team behind Levan and Bar Levan in Peckham will add to the trend with Cassette in Covent Garden, a “bistrot à vins” promising “a Parisian energy”.
“We established La Nouvelle Garde for one reason, to preserve the French art de vivre and bring a new golden age to the traditional brasseries everyone is used to,” says Charles Perez. If London’s current appetite for French hospitality is anything to go by, they might be just as at home across the Channel.