Lady of the Grapes London Bridge is a wine bar and restaurant, bringing plenty of Comté, Burgundy and biodynamic wine to a site next to the Meunier Chocolate Factory.
The original Lady of the Grapes in Covent Garden has a reputation as one of the capital's very best wine bars, and the SE1 opening is considerably larger than the original, split across two levels with two distinct moods. Upstairs, the ground-floor restaurant seats around 60 diners alongside a terrace for another 20, leaning into the same modern French bistro cooking that made the Covent Garden site such a success. Downstairs, meanwhile, Forbidden Fruit - the dramatically named basement wine bar - focuses on charcuterie and an eye-watering list of around 400 bottles. In other words, exactly the sort of place where 'just one glass' almost always turns into cancelling your next morning plans.
Founded by Carole Bryon in 2018, Lady of the Grapes has always centred around wines made exclusively by female winemakers, spotlighting women working across organic, biodynamic and minimal-intervention vineyards worldwide.
Head chef Matyáš Plzák, whose CV includes Frog by Adam Handling, Frenchie and Mãos, is leading a menu filled with sharply executed French comfort dishes. Expect oeuf meurette with lardons and red wine sauce, Comté soufflé with summer truffle and poached Bresse chicken with morels and vin jaune sauce. Elsewhere, lamb chops arrive with mint Grenobloise, peas, artichokes and lamb jus, while desserts include madeleines and Paris-Brest because, frankly, no proper French bistro should be allowed to operate without at least one dangerously buttery pudding.
What makes the opening particularly welcome is the location itself. London Bridge has no shortage of pubs, chains and Borough Market queues, but genuinely good wine bars remain surprisingly thin on the ground. Lady of the Grapes fills that gap rather nicely.