These old-timers have been quietly going about their business for decades rather than years. Their menus are couched in old-fashioned language, this is not the place to seek out Asian spicing, foams, or moody fusion concepts.

Le Café Du Marché, the atmospheric French restaurant in Smithfield and firm favourite among City folk, is offering three courses for the price of two for lunch until the end of the summer. Hidden up an ancient cobbled lane off Charterhouse Square, there's nothing erstaz about the place's romantic Gallic charm, where you can get stuck into a constantly changing menu of French classics. The fillet steak, by the way, is spectacular.

This nest of three restaurants is hidden away close to Smithfield(as well as the café there is Le Rendezvous and Le Grenier Du Café) and they have been serving traditional French food to happy regulars since 1986. For the Francophile its the perfect place to celebrate Quatorze Julliet.

Le Café du Marché has been in Clerkenwell so long you half expect to find Peter Ackroyd excavating the cobbles outside. This area is steeped in history, so perhaps it's only fitting that one of its best restaurants has been around a while too...

That's probably down to the lure of places like Le Café Du Marché, which has taken the best innovations of the last few decades(lighter dishes; waiters who don't look at you like you've shat in their shoes) and grafted them on to what is, essentially, a great French neighbourhood restaurant. That just happens to be plonked right in the middle of Smithfield.