A top French restaurant in Croydon? My dear, how priceless

A top French restaurant in Croydon? My dear, how priceless. The suburban C-word has picked up a lousy reputation over the years, for urban sprawl, urban grot, listless violence, rubber-band "facelifts", chavs, feral dogs and the unlovely atmosphere of the Fairfield Hall. So much so that the buzz about Le Cassoulet has almost been drowned by snobbish guffaws: surely, they say, Croydon's idea of haute cuisine is a meat balti.

True, the place is located off the dismayingly vast and snarling Croydon High Street; true also that Selsdon Road is annoyingly one-way (the wrong way) and the restaurant's closest neighbours are Coral the bookie's, a laundromat, a dental surgery and a 24/7 DVD rental shop for your urgent 3am Brazilian-porn needs. But Le Cassoulet, when you finally find it on a dismal, rainy Sunday lunchtime, is a dream.

It's a long, friendly room, nicely lit by old-fashioned sconce lamps, with red stripey banquettes, two levels of décor depending on where you're sitting (damson plum painted walls or white flowery wallpaper) and an indefinable air of joie de vivre. The owner is Malcolm John, who is also behind the much-admired Le Vacherin in Chiswick. A Croydon-dweller, he's clearly taking a vertiginous risk in opening a full-priced, posh eaterie in his insalubrious backyard. But when you stop admiring his nerve, there's much to admire about his food.

The menu is so French, it practically has leetle twirly moustaches in zer margins. From the soupe a l'oignon gratinée to the Ile Flottante pudding, from the exclusively Gallic wine list to the puckish and unflappable waiter (who explained to my son that the French word for "cool" was, regrettably, "cool"), it reminds you of a time when all good restaurants, all waiters and nearly all available wines were French, and you accepted unquestioningly their superiority in kitchen and cellar. How long ago it seems! The staff play up to national stereotypes. When I complained to the maître d' that there was "une mouche dans ma verre de vin," he stared gravely at the drowning midge and muttered, "Desolée..." with a show of truly Napoleonic regret.

Starters were a little predictable, but intensely flavoured. Escargots de Bourgogne were fat and hot and reeking with garlicky butter; nothing new snailwise (they weren't, for example, porridge) but juicily satisfying. Chicken liver parfait, smeared across a toasted brioche, had an unearthly smoothness and delicacy. The endive tarte tatin was a revelation, the endive caramelised until it was sweet as apple, but with a lingering ghost of bitter chicory, teased out by some creamy goat's cheese.

Sunday lunch in this Montmartre-on-sea wasn't likely to feature le rosbif, le pudding de Yorkshire or any other abominations of Albion. In search of the next best thing, the children ordered a 28-day-hung chateaubriand to share (which added a stonking £12 supplement to the prix fixe of £19.50 for three courses) and went into teen raptures about its succulence. It was a freakishly tender and mouth-fillingly rich slab of Charolais cow, the strange colour (like a livid, cherry-purple war-wound) that comes with long hanging and broken-down muscle. Pan-fried filet of sea bream was crisp outside and firm within, and though I raised an eyebrow at the crab and leek risotto on which it sat like King Neptune in The Little Mermaid, the fish and seafood melded together exquisitely. The slow-cooked pork cheek was a single, substantial tranche of dark, steaming pig-flesh, not the most beautiful dish in the world, but perfect if you'd been out hunting all morning. My duck confit definitely was a thing of beauty, a big alpha-duck leg, its skin crisp as Cellophane, the flesh poking out tiny, steaming fibrous fingers, the whole thing dotted with fat puy lentils and served on a creamy mash that curled round the leg like a persistent seducer.

As I followed a slug of sauvignon blanc (slightly tart, but of course we're more used to the New Zealand version than the French) with a heady glass of liquorice-and-cherries cahors de Cedre, I thought Le Cassoulet was the perfect local restaurant: so charming, simple, friendly, family-orientated, the food cooked with impeccable judgement, served without fuss or flap. How fortunate you'd be to have such a place on your own doorstep. As we offered each other spoonfuls of petit pot de chocolat, a dreamy crème brulée and a "floating island" of meringue dripped with caramel and launched on a cold custard lake (it was lovely, but too rich to finish), I realised that, for the first time in my life, I envied the denizens of Croydon. I mean, think of it – a restaurant, a bookie's and a 24/7 DVD rental, all on the same block?

Le Cassoulet, 18 Selsdon Road, South Croydon, Surrey (020-8633 1818)

Food
Ambience
Service

Around £90 for two, with wine

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