The independent founders and owners of popular Hammersmith French bistro, Le Petit Citron, have announced the opening of a second site, La Bouffe, in Fulham.
Emily and Lawrence Hartley founded Le Petit Citron in 2016 to bring their inspiration from family holidays spent in Provence to London customers. The husband-and-wife duo have over 50 years of hospitality experience between them and have previously owned French restaurants in St Margaret’s and Richmond.
Over the past nine years, Le Petit Citron has become a recognised spot for top French food among locals and tourists alike. The restaurant and its team have won several awards, including most recently being recommended in the 2025 Good Food Guide.
Following the success of Le Petit Citron, in part thanks to the restaurant’s application of technology, Emily and Lawrence have now opened a sister site in Fulham, La Bouffe, bucking hospitality sector trends.
Emily said: “We are so excited and proud to have opened a second French bistro in the Hammersmith and Fulham area. It’s testament to our fantastic team and incredibly loyal customers that we’ve been able to expand and bring great French food to more diners in London.”
More than three dozen restaurants in London were reportedly closed in the first half of 2025, more than double the reported number in 2023. Notable closures include Michelin-starred Lyle’s, The Five Fields, Locanda Locatelli, Leroy, Launceston Place, and several branches of chains like Pizza Hut and Chick n Sours.
Emily and Lawrence say that it’s the ability to retain a small, efficient team, and their leverage of technology that has enabled them to expand.
Lawrence added: “We rely heavily on technology in our restaurants now. We’ve taken our approach to technology beyond the usual till and ordering platforms that are commonplace in restaurants today. As a digital first, connected restaurant, my team and I know largely what’s going on in the kitchen and on the floor regardless of whether we’re in the restaurant or not.
“In the early days of Le Petit Citron, we invested in real-time monitoring for our kitchen equipment, using Telemetry to stay connected to the restaurant from afar. Telemetry’s sensors monitor our key appliances 24/7, which has saved us massively in terms of time and money, avoiding some real headaches in the process. It has enabled us to predict equipment failures and saved thousands in potential lost stock when one of our fridges went down unexpectedly.”
Telemetry is a London-based, independent hospitality tech firm that monitors essential kitchen equipment in real time. It deploys sensors and cloud-based technology within a kitchen, to enable chefs, owners, and managers to monitor performance remotely in real time.
Piers Skinner, MD of Telemetry, commented: “Emily and Lawrence are a fantastic example of dedicated, innovative hospitality entrepreneurs and it’s a real pleasure to work with them. We’ve worked hard to create a solution for their business that offers them genuine peace of mind, being able to ensure their kitchen is operating as it should, regardless of where they are. Their story is a great example of where technology really can unlock opportunities for ambitious business leaders.”
Across the Hammersmith & Fulham borough, Emily and Lawrence now employ over 30 people and manage 500 covers per week across both sites.
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Dining and Cooking