Maquis
Telephone: 020-8846 3851
Address: 111 Hammersmith Grove, London W6

· Open Mon-Fri, Sun, 12.30-3pm; Mon-Sat, 7-10.30pm.

La Trouvaille
Telephone: 020-7287 8488
Address: 12a Newburgh Street, London W1

· Open Mon-Sat, 12noon-3pm; 6-10.30pm Menus lunch, £16.75 for 2 courses; £ 19.50 for 3.

And there I was, saying only the other day, isn't it time that French became the new Italian, and, well, maybe it is. Maquis is not a French French place, but it does have some style and panache. Character is another matter. In essence it conforms to the uniform of the regulation modern eatery: smartly casual white walls, casually smart matching wooden floor and tables, smartly casual designer chairs, casually smart big windows, smart and casual waiters and waitresses in smartly casual black and so on and so on. It is not wholly dissimilar to a dozen other places I could mention, including Moró, the watering hole of choice for Guardian Myrmidons in Exmouth Market, which is not so surprising given that Sam 'the Man' Clark of Moró is in the thick of things at Maquis.

Maquis is the word used to describe the indigenous scrub of Corsica and Mediterranean France, but the kitchen at the restaurant has not allowed quaint notions of regional loyalty to cramp its style. At lunch in the company of the discerning Quantock the other day, we yomped our way through a fair selection of dishes - fresh cepes (very yummy), rillette tart (quite yummy), snails (not so yummy), petit sale (just about yummy), grilled chicken with dandelion salad and anchovy dressing, (distinctly yummy), cheese and chocolate tart (very yummy indeed). Some of the dishes need a bit more work, but altogether it fitted the bill of what nice, middle-class Londoners want on their plate - metro-rustic, carefully considered, but, in the final analysis, rather too carefully considered.

This is not an accusation you could make about La Trouvaille. The dining rooms seem to have been thrown together with a cavalier disregard for every design axiom. The chairs have been picked up at a sale of church furniture. The tables look like they have been rescued from the skip of another restaurant. The ceiling is festooned with coils of air conditioning ducting, like a gigantic metal boa constrictor. There is no dress code for the waiters, but they share a peculiarly Gallic manic energy, which creates an atmosphere conducive to the consumption of many bottles of wine, a great deal of cheery conversation and immoderate consumption of such enterprising bistro dishes as a salad of sardines and spinach; a clump of brandade de morue; a dish of grilled salsify with confit of tomatoes and aioli; a hefty fillet of plaice meuniere; a substantial braised shin of pork; a liquorice waffle or two with Suze ice cream and a cumulus nimbus of chocolate mousse served from a bowl between us. The cooking was earthy and accurate and there was no mucking about.

There wasn't much difference in the bills. They were both around the £25 a head mark for food, so you pays your money and you takes your choice. Maquis is as smooth as you like, perfectly calibrated, perfectly decent, perfectly behaved and none the less enjoyable for that. But my money would go to La Trouvaille, which may be a bit rougher around the edges, but which is, well, French.