Ten years ago, the breakthrough in London steak dining was in delivering cow hides which were tender enough to cut with a regular and not a steak knife. I am referring to the gimmick they use at Gaucho. I believe they still operate the one man open grill in the centre of its 1st floor dining room at the Piccadilly branch, but I haven’t been in years. On busy weekends, every diner is a witness to the grill man screwing up Argentina’s best exports.

If birthdays were involved, it had to be the gigantic 800g bone-in rib steaks at The Big Easy. In those days, we were much less picky, reasonably happy to make do with Scotch Angus’, Prime USDAs were a rare sight in restaurants and the Josper yet to be introduced into our lexicon.

2012 is a very different world altogether. ‘American’ food has well and truly invaded every category of our dining preference. These days you are much pickier lot, going beyond a cut of choice to preference of provenance. On the topic of breeds, I’d like to think of our options as a sliding scale from intensely beefy & chewy to tender & sweet. That’s English grassfed Longhorns on one end, Irish Angus in the middle and cornfed American Angus on the other.

There is the other special (especially wallet burning) category of Wagyu (literally for ‘Japanese beef’) , which to me evokes images of beautiful bos with flowing black coats, gnawing on grass as elfish helpers brush their coats with sake and watch the prized cows wash down their five a days with beer, to keep a constant state of drunken flux.

Wagyu are well-travelled these days. As you know, you can’t buy Japanese beef in the UK , but we can access examples from Chile, Oz, and (still elusive) Spain. The prized cattle are valued not for their fat content, but the way fat is distributed through its muscle. That distribution is judged as degree of marbling, where higher grades mean better fat distribution, better flavour, more tenderness and consequently a heftier bottomline.

The Chinese call it ‘the flowering of oil’, in essence relating the beauty of a well marbled piece of beef to that of …a mesmerising pattern. The saying is more literal than you think, when cooked, the fatty pattern melts to a protective layer of oil enveloping a beef that is tenderer than most, with a flavour that is more delicate (some would say floral, others think it’s bland) than distinctly bovine. We now know there is a growing preference for this kind of fatty beef, what with ASDA’s introduction into their shops (which I still haven’t tried for myself yet).

The extortionate prices for wagyu may well come down in the next couple of years. Now these are just things I hear, and I hear that Welshmen are yielding good examples of Wagyu derived breeds, and those wizard herders from Tipperary are almost ready to slaughter their Wagyu-Angus crossbreeds.

CUT has most of the international breeds covered in their selection, with Prime USDAs flown in from the famed Creekstone farms (who supply Peter Luger and the famous Pat LeFrieda wholesalers) and Wagyu from the equally well-known Darling Downs cattle from Oz. As you know, the strength of steakhouses are judged primarily by what’s hanging in their ageing rooms. In that regard, I believe the Russians retain the title as reigning steak purveyors in London, I refer directly to my personal favourite steakhouse: Goodman. Yeah, I hear you mate, I like GP Longhorns too, but that’s all they sell at Hawksmoor.

As you know, 45 Park Lane is owned by the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA) which either means that it is wholly owned by the Bruneian Government or the Sultan or a bit of both. And hence the Dorchester connection. Brunei is no stranger to luxury, zero expense in spared in the lavish furnishings for this boutique hotel overlooking Hyde Park. If you’re ever in Brunei, book yourself into The Empire , for me, the massive multi-level mezzanine lobby held together by gigantic pillars is still a thing of wonder.

On the topic of stylish Royal cash splash, there is a rumour that when His Majesty is staying at The Dorchester, they would fly the Bruneian flag. There is the other rumour that the end of his stay, he would have all the staff form a line, and one of his henchmen would tip each person a couple of hundred quid. There is a shred of truth to that. In the (my) good ol’ (Uni) days, HM would organise annual dinners with Bruneian students at its student residential halls in Paddington (usually to celebrate Hari Raya, Aidilfitri or Eid) and the ‘attendance gifts’ were usually a couple hundred quid.

Incidentally, a mate of mine actually worked on the deal for 45PL while with BIA. Naturally, their brief was to build a hotel from the best of the best, and it was always their intention to chase a big chef to associate the hotel with. That big chef is Wolfgang Puck – one of America’s most well known names. Here’s a little known fact, the one proviso for the hotel restaurant is for it to be able to deliver fully halal meals. Which implies fully halal meats. Hmm, fully halal Darling Downs beef? At some point, Brunei did own a cattle farm in Australia which was geographical larger than the whole of the country. So we do have a history of steak love.

As Friday afternoon and mostly because of its expensive menu, I failed to convince Mark to tag along. So I flew solo for this one.

You’ve seen their ALC right? Hideously expensive isn’t it.

Let’s make sense of the numbers shall we? I’ll measure the Prime USDA Ribeyes prices purely because this is my choice cut.

So Wolfgang reckons that 14 oz (400g approx) is £48. And so:

The CUT : £120/kg
Maze Grill : £125/kg
Goodman : £67.50/kg
Jack O’Sheas : £38/kg
JW : £87/kg (based on 14oz sirloin for £35)

Yup. The CUT ain’t cheap, in fact, they almost as expensive as Maze Grill. It is worth including the oft neglected JW Steakhouse (at The Grosvenor) which also sells Prime USDA and is next door to 45 Park Lane.

Frankly, I didn’t fancy paying for the ALC. So instead I elected to eat from the £55 three course set. This included two small measures of wine (I am guessing 125ml or even 75ml each) , coffee and half a bottle of water – pretty good value considering their Wagyu Sashimi salad is part of this set.

What am I saying, no meal priced at £55 should ever be considered ‘good value’. The choice cut was a 6oz Casterbridge tenderloin, but I decided to pay the £15 supplement to upgrade to a 10oz Prime USDA NY Strip instead.

Wagyu Steak Sashimi, Spicy Radishes, Greek Cress (ALC price is £23)

Depending on how you feel about raw food, this either looks gorgeously sinful or terribly animalistic. I fall in the former category. It’s a bit of a Puck signature dish that is present across all of Wolfgang’s international CUT outlets, sometimes going by Kobe beef tataki or Kobe beef sashimi salad.

Generously thick slices of Oz Wagyu fillet were amazingly tender and visually well marbled. It was like carpaccio, but with a pan-asian twist. It was a dish which could only work if the produce was of the absolute best quality, and this Darling Downs beef was absolutely just that. It was floral, fresh tasting and melted like candy floss. The rawness of the meat was covered with a beautifully made spicy sauce. It tasted like chilli, garlic, Thai fish sauce and maybe a dash of lemon juice or probably ponzu. I thought this lavish starter reflected the luxuriously high production values the restaurant (and hotel) embodied.

I washed it down with the half measure of Chablis.

Creekstone Farms Prime USDA NY Strip (Sirloin), 10 oz, Medium Rare.

I’ve lost count of the number of speciality ovens in the city. At some point in our steak history, broilers and Josper grills were in the single digits, technology which was bespoke and unique in Brit restaurant kitchens, but today, even Bistro du vin has a Josper.

The high heat and charcoal is crucial to infusing the meat with the signature smoky, BBQ flavours of burnt cow hide, and at CUT, they boast about hardwood, charcoals and a broiler capable of reaching 650C. I’m not exactly sure if that implies an open grill, since I’ve never seen such a broiler up close before.

I have seen Jospers in operation, which are nothing more than ovens stuffed with charcoal. It manages something like 450C. At those temperatures, the exhaust gases are so hot, that opening the oven doors can literally obliterate eyebrows, and because of the heat, the kit need be supported with refractory material capable of containing the heat. I suppose a similar design is employed for the CUT’s broiler.

I took an extra 3 minutes to take some pictures before cutting into the steak. So that’s an extra 3 minutes of resting time on top of whatever the kitchen had allocated to this. Look at that plate, what do you see? Aside from the bearnaise, the plate was completely dry, ZERO juice leakage which tells me that this kitchen cook steaks with care, and understand the importance of resting. The steak was definitely a strong 10oz, leaning toward 11oz, as you know, high heat broilers mean that steaks spend no more than a couple of minutes over the heat, and hence why steakhouses with superhot cookers call for cuts to be of a certain minimum thickness. In other words, always order the heaviest weight you can afford, and if you’re with a large crew, get something at least 1kgs worth, on the bone and have the kitchen slice it up to share. As The Critical Couple had rightly pointed out in their blogpost, avoid the bite-sized £55 tasters.

Next, check the colour: That’s a perfect medium rare to me. Ok, so it was a fairly breezy Friday afternoon service, when things get busy on a weekend, this consistency may slip, but still – this is definitely a sign that the kitchen is well versed in the art of searing. See all that blackened carbon on the crust? These steaks were pre-seasoned with salt and pepper before going over the charcoal. A little different from say Goodman who do theirs nude. In fact, I don’t think there were any S&P shakers on the table.

Mmmm… as expected, the Prime USDA was signature tender & sweet. Being a sirloin, it obviously had an expected muscular chew to it, but for a sirloin, it was incredibly tender. The Creekstone beef was of amazing quality, it was well marbled stuff, and I could taste every globule of sweet fat oozing out from every bite. Personally I prefer the slobbering intense fatty flavours of a rib-eye, but on this occasion, the beefier flavour of sirloin were a welcomed change.

Juicesage was well absorbed in the meat, but I think that they probably hadn’t caramalised the crust enough to create enough contrast between a burnt exterior and a buttery, juicy centre. So the sensation of ‘sealing the juices’ wasn’t quite as pronounced as I was used to. But still that sensation akin to bursting a water balloon or puncturing juice-filled fruit pulps were present.

Smoky, charcoal flavours were on the mellow side, only barely detectable, and more pan-fried than fired over glowing embers. Still, it didn’t take away from the overall quality of the meat, the relatively mild flavour were actually quite pleasant, it demonstrated careful cooking to me. In place of smoky flavours were that of caramalised pepper and salt. I thought the seasoning was just right – I hardly dunked the steak in the bearnaise.

The heart of any steak restaurant may be the all important grill, but its soul is the people who operate it. Both appear to be in good working order. So all in all, I think these guys know how to grill steaks.

I washed down the delicate prime american beef with a jammy Californian pinot.

The chips.

Fried vegetable oil, a little like Pringles, a powdery crisp, rich potato flavours, perfect with bearnaise. They are lighter than the triple cooked stuff we are so used to, but as good as any Parisian bistro.

Creamed spinach with egg, £6.50.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist it, we bloggers we love puncturing egg yolks.

More attention to detail, this restaurant to me is all about the luxe. I can only describe this side dish of spinach as the most decadent plate of vegetables I had ever had. This is the kind of dish a casino would reward you with for cleaning them out for a hundred grand.

Medjool Date Cake, Sticky Toffee Sauce, “50 bean” vanilla ice cream.

Hot toffee sauce poured over an incredibly sugary date cake – talk about a luxury treacle tart, there was enough sugar in this cake to feed entire countries. I loved that ’50 bean’ vanilla ice cream. It sat on top of either frozen marshmallows or meringue. The ice cream was so rich in vanilla that it was more brown than white in appearance.

Gosh what did I pay? £86.06 for one. Sure, it’s fucking expensive, the most expensive set lunch I’ve ever paid for. But it was also brilliantly delicious, in an old-fashioned kind of way. On my visit, most tables were filled with men and women in suits, and I surmise all were about business. Hey, I would do business lunches here, it has that kind of greedy ambiance which Mickey Bricks would use to convince his marks of his latent abilities in delivering the too good to be true. Truthfully though, I didn’t like the long and narrow design. Yeah sure it was decked out like Cleopatra’s boudoir, but it also felt like I was eating in a hallway. For a real money-money hotel steakhouse ambiance, JW is actually much swankier, though their steaks aren’t exactly top notch.

There were a couple of solo diners like me, in polo shirts and jeans, who didn’t have to work a Friday afternoon. I did sit across a bloke dining with two women, a blonde and a brunette, and I did wonder if they had spent the morning engaged in ….yoga. He paid for the meal after the women left without him.

So, here’s the moment of truth then, should you invest in a meal at the CUT? Well, yes and no. If you’ve only just won the lottery, yeah do it. Service has improved tremendously since it opened. Not only did they offer the solo diner (me) the daily paper, they asked me what I wanted to read. The Times if you are still keeping track. So at the very least, I think you will be treated well. The food as I said, is of luxury quality. And at those prices, they better damn well be. If the steak is anything but to your preference, always, always send it back. That was a tip I got from someone who runs a successful steakhouse in London. If you are curious and have the opportunity to expense a business meal with associates, don’t even think about it, go here and satisfy your curiosity.

If you are a regular steak lover like me, stick to Goodman. It remains the standard by which steakhouses in London are measured against.

The Gist

CUT at 45 Park Lane
Steak, and other things. £100pp and easily more.
No.45 Park Lane W1K 1PN
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7493 4554
Underground : Hyde Park Corner

Links

John Walsh , John Lanchester , Andy Hayler , Slow Food Kitchen , Saying it Straight

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It’s been six months since I was last here. And my information gathering has returned the following: John had left the Josper to pursue new charcoaled pasteurs in Swindon… and is possibly back at Maddox St… , Dave S is still the smooth operator, and Goodman Mayfair is still ever overbooked. It remains my favourite place to go for a steak dinner in the city, and I am very glad to say the Josper grilled, charcoalised, blood filled sensteaktions are still my paramour. Food wise, sex wise, I mean, you know what I mean. Please excuse the vulgarity, it’s meat afterall.

As per usual, I always request for a bespoke cut of meat, on the bone, and have it served sliced, and to be shared. I have since come up with a formula to figure out how much each table requires:

Firstly, to figure out the weight you should order, apply Kang’s Standard Equation of Meat:

150 + 200 x (n1) + 300 x (n2) + 400 x (n3)

replace n1, n2, n3 with number of persons who fall in the categories according to the key below :

Key:
150 – weight of bone,
n1 – number of ladies on table,
n2 – number of gentlemen,
n3 – number of men with impossibly large guts.

eg: if table of three contains 2 ladies and a large tummy then,

Weight of steak = 150 + 200 x (2) + 300 x (0) + 400 x (1) = 950g. Voila.

All steak restaurants should use Kang’s standard equation of meat.

Next choose your cut :

Bone-in Ribeye = Best balance of fat + meat = flavourbags. The gentlemen’s choice.
Porterhouse = Medium Fillet + Large Sirloin = Best of both worlds
T-Bone = Tiny Fillet + Large Sirloin = Poor man’s Porterhouse.
Fillet = Soft to touch, not much to taste.
Sirloin = Balance. Good separation of fat and meat.
Onglet = Out there, livery, cut across the grain.
Rump = Flavour. For when you feel German.

Side orders:

Chips
Spinach
Bearnaise
Stilton and Red Wine Sawce.

And lastly, breed:

USDA = Mild flavour, schweet, tender.
O’Sheas = Balanced flavourbags, tender but not overly so, fragrant, like a field of lavender…
Galloway = Megaflavour, least tenderest, megabeefy.
Wagyu = Oily.

And here are the photographs. All done with a ‘point and shoot’ from the lady’s handbag, if you believe me. We paid £90 for this meal. This is probably my ninth visit to Goodman in two years. It has only gotten better and better in that time. I think what rounds out Goodman so well, are that starters – easily overlooked – are actually quite good. Frank Hederman’s smoked salmon always a good place to start, in case you are lost. The risotto is awesome, and the lobster bisque is to the point.

If you are even slightly curious of meat, go to Goodman.

Buffalo Mozzarella, £8.00.

A light starter, nothing heavy because…

800g O’Sheas Bone-in Ribeye, £50 (@£62.50/kg)

Just look at this glorious monstrosity. Yes.. YES..

Medium rare, no exceptions. You see that crusty skin? That’s the kiss of charcoal. Helps to create the illusion of ‘sealing in the juices’ with the contrast of crusty exterior and bloody interior.

…and please chew the fat. That’s where the buttery field of lavender flavourbags lie.

Lobster mash, £7.

Not bad, but probably abit overkill. Chips would have sufficed.

Creamed spinach with cheese, £4.50

Also overkill, since the main course is essentially meat, with concentrated flavour. Always ask for blanched without cream.

Oh and one last thing. Get the Californian Columbia Crest 2008. A cab sav, really jammy, very heady nose, £12 per standard measure, great with the steak.

Q.E.D. babes.

Gordon Ramsay restaurants are entering the autumn of their lifecycles. Cycle being the keyword here, with many of his proteges, who used to run his restaurants during their heady years, moving on to bigger and better things. Originally a spin-off from the next-door small plate wonder that was Jason Atherton’s Maze (who has left and will soon open his own, Pollen Street Social in April, ironically near where Goodman Mayfair), this steak restaurant feels like it has been left to rot.

At one point in time, Atherton’s restaurants were home to some of the hottest tables in town. Securing a reservation required weeks of advance notice. And now if you pop open the online booking interface on Ramsay’s website, you’ll see that nearly all the time slots, on any given day, are quite free.

That’s a bad sign. This and the fact that it has been receiving tepid feedback lately makes it doubly bad.

But I have my reasons for visiting – my first to the Grill, I’ve been to Maze – for personal satisfaction, and for the sake of completeness to satisfy my inquisition into the best steak houses in town. The main reason being that Maze Grill is the only restaurant in town which famously sell Prime USDAs from The Creekstone farms; alleged to be the same cuts of beef used by the vaunted Peter Luger steakhouse in NYC.

The ambiance is still vintage Gordon Ramsay – high production values all round – but it felt worryingly aged. The wood now showed visible scratching, the leather had dulled in colour, the cutlery was cloudy silver, the clock was running behind by several minutes, et al. In fact it felt like a top-tier hotel in dire need of a make-over.

But I figured with age, must come a well-honed kitchen able to expertly tackle and tame the broilers they have in there, even with their enigmatic leader now off to start make a name for himself.

Naturally, I took the better half for the usually long, late and lazy Friday lunch. At this point, I’d like to note that the clock approached 3pm, and the room, while sparse, had tables filled with many suits, and many buttoned down, but pressed shirts. I didn’t want to assume that many had come in on expenses (I had not, and I was not in a suit, and I don’t work on Fridays after 12, if you were wondering) , but it did appear that there were few genuine paying customers who were dining purely for pleasure, rather than for business.

Pink Lady apple, pancetta, rocket salad and kimchi dressing, part of set lunch, 2 courses for £21.

The lady started out with this spicy apple salad, that seemed nice enough to start. We didn’t expect much for £21 set lunch anyway.

Peppered onglet, peppercorn sauce, chips and dressed leaves, part of set lunch, 2 courses for £21. Medium Rare.

For £21, this is is a pretty nice deal. Given the onglet was on the small side, probably measuring about 6 inches long, shaped of an oddly familiar thrust. On wood.

With peppercorn sauce and chips (that costs £4 if ordered as a side dish).

It was served closer to medium than medium rare, but we liked it. The charred flavours were on the milder end, not quite the crispy, smoky, seared over the stones of Mordor flavour that is characteristic of Goodman or Hawksmoor, or even the JW steaks at Grovesnor House. It’s a good piece of beef, chewy, but tender, we didn’t ask if it was Irish, Scotch, English or American. If I had to guess, I’d say English, but let’s leave that a mystery. For £21, for steak, chips and a salad and the ‘Gordon Ramsay experience’ , it’s great value for money.

Note the leaking juices on the wooden board, not a good sign.

Time for the real deal.

Steak sauce ‘made by the table’ , £2.50.

What a load of gimmick-ridden and woefully dated rubbish. The sauce was not better than a standard bbq steak sauce out of a bottle, and the gimmick of being able to choose from a five ingredients to ‘tailor’ your sauce to your steak is – for want of a better term – utter bullshite. Chopped garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper (I think). The point is, this steak sauce tasted horrible.

Creekstone, prime USDA 12oz Ribeye, dry aged 35 days, £42.50.

A little on the pricy side innit?

Yes.

A little on the small side too, considering this is suppose to be 12oz or 340g for you SI-heads. In my humble opinion, I do not believe I was served 340g of beef. It looked too small. Closer to 8oz than 10, let alone 12 as advertised.

Later in the same day, I went to Jack O’Sheas at Selfridges to pick up an equivalent cut of (superb) Prime USDA ribeye, with superb marbling, and for 200g, it only set me back a mere £8. That’s £40 per kilogram.

Here’s a cheeky BBM photo:

Note the ludicriously amazing marbling. Can you believe I only paid £8 for this slab of fine beef?

So extrapolating the numbers, Maze Grill are charging roughly 4x more than O’Sheas, that’s £160/kg. Fuck me. Grade 12 Oz Wagyu (AA6+) at JOS costs £189/kg, and that’s at the very top end of steaks (discounting Japanese Wagyu), so that’s quite a significant mark-up. Sauce and chips are an additionally £2.50 and £4 respectively.

As a benchmark, Goodman sell their USDA’s at a rate of about £60-£70/kg, if I am not mistaken.

Alright, alright, so we have established that Maze Grill charge a hefty premium for beef, but we already know that to eat in a Gordon Ramsay, we should be prepared to pay for the privilege.

Let’s cut into this beast. I asked for medium rare.

Hmm. On inspection, this is closer to medium than medium rare. I think the issue here, is that the steak is too thin. Assuming they’ve got the broiler buzzing at 650C (give or take a couple of hundred degrees), then the steaks aren’t going to spend very long on it, ergo: the difference between medium rare and medium is a matter of seconds.

I personally feel that, this is the reason why steaks should be dictionary (or at least novel) thick to achieve a rounded bloody (or pink) centre. Besides, with beef as high quality as Prime USDAs, they’re going to be tender regardless of how thick you slice ‘em.

Note all the wetness on the board. That’s a bad sign. It is an indication that the steaks were not well-rested before service. The next time you go to Good-Moor, pay attention to the on-plate juicesage. If done correctly, the well-sealed juices, should stay in the meat and only come out when you chew on it. The more the spillage, the worst an experience you’ll have.

The good news is that the steak – like the hanger steak – had a pleasing, if a tad subtle, charred flavour to it. It’s no knock-out, but it was decent enough and passable to be considered delicious. I felt the quality of meat was very high. It had a lovely natural sweetness, fragrant, perhaps of a corn-rich diet the cattle was put on before slaughter. For a steak cooked to medium, it was still very tender.

However, the steak had lost alot of water content, so it didn’t have the orange-burst textures, and it just didn’t sizzle in terms of actual charcoal flavours, as experienced in the Josper equals at Good-Moor.

In fact, it’s worst than the dictionary thick prime USDAs at JW steakhouse, which in hindsight, is probably not such a bad steakhouse afterall. The lobster bearnaise (£12) is absolutely to die for over there.

So a little juxtapositioning here, with the overly cooked steaks in the fore, and the medium rare tag in the background.

We paid £106.32 for this meal, the cost of which includes the usual 12.5%, 1 steak sauce, 1 extra portion of extra chips, two glasses of red and two coffees. Taking away the £30 for the missus’ set meal + wine, that leaves about £70 for my ’12oz’ steak and a glass of wine, which is dastardly.

Look, you know I love my steaks, but I’ve not been so bitterly disappointed with one such as this experience in London before. We are fortunate (thanks in part to Good-Moor) that steakhouses have come of age in London, and are no longer the rarity they once were. Which means, better grilled steaks, higher quality meat, a general higher awareness of the tell-tale signs of bloody good thick cuts, and a general trend of lower prices what with the improving competition. If you venture as far as the Chapters restaurant in Blackheath, you’ll find good Josper-grilled steaks for half the money and twice the flavour. I’m afraid in today’s climate, Maze Grill has fallen behind the competition. It still thinks that NY-inspired steakhouses do not exist in London, effectively ignoring the fact that the competition had caught on a long time ago.

This isn’t 2007 (we have Retina displays now) but everything about this restaurant has stayed firmly rooted in the past age of dated excess. I don’t want to turn this into a whipping session, because I think the steaks were above average, and actually more than edible. The chips were a little soggy, but mostly ok (not dripped in beef dripping nor a triple-cooked genius however) , and I actually really liked the peppercorn sauce, which tasted more like a creamy mushroom soup.

The £21 deal is a megahit and worth every penny, but in the crazy, ever shifting world of London restaurants, it is all relative, and relatively speaking, Maze Grill just doesn’t cut the mustard no more.

I can recommend the £21 onglet, but I don’t recommend you getting curious about the Creekstones. Get a slab from JOS instead, let the beef rest to room temperature, and marinate with oil at least 30mins before cooking. Then searing hot pan (cast iron Le Creuset if applicable), 2 to 2.5 minutes on each side, let it rest for 10 to 15minutes, 25 minutes if you can wait that long, then bit of rock salt, bit of pepper, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.

More photographs on my flickr page.

The Gist of It

Maze Grill
Steak and Gordon Ramsay and why bother. £65pp
10 – 13 Grosvenor Square W1K 6JP
Tel : 020 7495 2211
Tube: Bond Street

Headed for the Exit: The Critical Couple

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Hawksmoor has great PR, one of the early champions of blogs, it has since gone on to utilise and charm the medium with great success. Generally speaking, you guys – ie, people who read online food ramblings – love Hawksmoor. And I suppose, as a viable business, it has prompted Will & Huw to expand with this second restaurant; much more conveniently located in Covent Garden. Technically, My visit this week (45) is during opening week, but like many of the well informed food writing/blogging republic, they will have got a meat-powerup in October from the oversubscribed soft-launch (including yours truly), and no doubt, you’ll already have read about it elsewhere.

But wait..wait…I think I can add value, serious.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the Hawksmoors are not really steak restaurants, despite what my peers have already said, it’s a meat restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the steaks, they jospergrill the shiz out of the steaks well enough, but I just feel that the kitchen are distracted by cooking other – better – items off the menu. Actually, it’s more than a meat restaurant, it’s an unadulterated celebration of protein in all edible formats. Just look at how the menu reads: Six oysters and sausages; Half a lobster; Grilled lamb chops; Bone Marrow; Tamworth belly ribs, and that’s just for starters.

With protein to start, and protein mains, you can opt for more protein on the side, in the form of fried eggs or bone marrow, with bone marrow sauce and beef dripping chips. If you are partial to green things, look away. Rarrghh..!

The (poorly) 850g Porterhouse, £51.

So they have a chalk board to track the availability of pre-prepared cuts throughout the night. We wanted a bone-in rib at 850g, but they only had 1kg cuts. They couldn’t do a bespoke cut for us. That’s just blasphemy! No visible dry aging room. Perhaps a meat locker of some kind..? As I said in my 2009 post, this is why I don’t do steak at Hawksmoor. Choice is poor.

Ginger Pig Longhorns are great, strong beefy flavours, not overly tender, when dry-aged, the stuff is brill, but it is not better than O’Sheas. Overpriced at £60/kg, even for restaurant mark-ups. For the sake of comparison, Goodman’s prized USDAs are £63/kg, and if memory serves, the O’sheas for roughly £45/kg. In my humble opinion, if you love GP, you’re better off getting the meat from the butcher (at Borough Market or Marylebone) for significantly less money, and then putting the rest toward a quality skillet.

I am used to being able to select cuts and breeds, and that’s why I think Goodman is the better steak restaurant. A typical Goodman meal can include a USDA, a Chilean Wagyu, an O’Shea and a Galloway. At Hawksmoor, it’s Longhorns or nothing.

As for cooking: Yes, on the money. No drippage, so I assume it was rested enough (We waited about 20 minutes for this), it had the signature taste of charcoal, like a barbecue going off in your mouth, and I’m certain they have a Josper in the Seven Dials branch. A perfect medium rare. In terms of meat – beefy and a tad chewy, but tender. The tenderloin bit of the porterhous, however, was disappointingly chewy. In contrast, a tenderloin (on a porterhouse) from O’Sheas usually melts like chocolate.

..THE BAR MENU..

I can’t find the pdf version on Hawksmoor’s website, but I feel that this menu is an important one. It’s not cocktails and nuts, it’s a proper food menu that carries two significant Hawksmoor dishes, namely the lobster roll and the signature burgers (now with an expanded range).

Warm Lobster Roll with Bearnaise. £25.

For months now, Twitter chatter had suggested that the Hawksmoor owners did significant research by travelling to the home of the lobster roll – Maine, USA – in order to recreate an accurate rendition of this dish in their London restaurants. I have never had a proper lobster roll in America before, so this virgin experience is something I covet.

The inspiration for this particular roll comes from Red’s Eats , a small shack in Wiscasset, Maine, that has been around since the 30′s.

A warm, toasted soft bun with fine lashings of garlic & hazelnut butter, stuffed with an entire, whole, grilled Dorset Blue…

….oh fuck…fuck…!! First of all, visually impressive, really was stuffed with a whole lobster – I gather a 750g shell on crustacean. This was seafood heaven. Protein heaven. Heaven.

It was as if the lobster’s hard shell had been substituted with this dense, soft and richly buttery garlic roll. It’s not very big, so you can actually eat it with your hands… I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s just great lobster, well seasoned, great garlic butter flavours, great bun, floury and sweet. It’s £25 and it’s bloody expensive, but it’s worth every penny. I’ve never had lobster rolls before, as I said, and my first time was simply orgasmic. And I will be back for more. In fact, I’ve booked a table for the 1st week of December. I will be back.

The Hawksmoor Bugger, with Beef Dripping chips. £15.

Much hype has been created around this bastard, to the point where every time I see a blog post about the marrow-filled patty, I cannot help but roll my eyes.

But then I took a bite, and realised I was dead wrong. This is the best burger in town, gourmet or otherwise. Hype duly justified.

The sweet bun is just great, the ogle shield cheese, like a sweet cheddar is great, the use of pickles is illuminating. The patty is beautiful, juicy, beefy and it gives this impression like it has been steamed. We can’t help but feel like alot of thought has gone into this burger. Put all the elements together, and you have a burger that jives like an 18-piece band. A burger that potentially could (have) launched a thousand foodblogs.

The Kimchi Burger, £15.

I had high hopes for this, but sadly, I hated this. Messy. All over the place. At its core, it is similar to the house burger, but the cheese has been upped to some sort of blue cheese, I gather, to match the spicy kimchi, which was more soya-like than spicy. The cheese was overpowering and too sharp, the kimchi in burger was just weird. I felt it was the fibrous texture that turned me off it, it just refused to play nice with the patty. And what a shame really, because the patty is great, it needs to be the star, and need not play second fiddle in this weird fusion monstrosity. I scraped off all the wet kimchi, and continued chomping.

Experimentation that has gone awry. I think the Hawksmoor burger is perfect, tinkering with the design has led to something quite grotesque, and ‘comparing’ them head to head, it only made it even clearer as to how great the original burger really is.

Full disclosure then, the reason I visited for opening week instead of during the soft launch, was because the kitchen had flooded and hence the restaurant was closed during the day we were meant to visit. But Will was kind enough to extend the 50% discount for food to us for this anyway. So we paid £80.44 for a table of 3. At full whack, it would have set us back £136.94… which would haved worked out to be £45 each.

Hawksmoor is expensive, but you get a great meat-filled experience. Over the next few weeks, you’re going to read alot about the new Hawksmoor, if you haven’t already. The message I want to convey is to not have steak at Hawksmoor. Its good, but it’s not great, for the same money, I feel that you get a lot more at Goodman or even Maze Grill. Great steak restaurants are as much about the Josper as it is about the quality and choice of meat.

Instead, I urge you to go for everything else on the menu, the ribs, the lobster roll, the burger, the bone marrow, the lamb chops, the beef drip chips (which were jaw dropping) and the cocktails (I had a Johnny from London?), and it is exactly everything else that makes the Hawksmoor dining experience, such a satisfying one.

For reference:
My little guide to steak
Hawksmoor Commercial Road 2009 review
Goodman City 2010 review

The Gist.

Hawksmoor Seven Dials
British, £45pp
*Not really in Seven Dials*
11 Langley St. WC2H 9JG
Tel: 020 7856 2154
Underground : Covent Garden

Do Meat: Guy Dimond & Gourmet Traveller

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I have been itching to supersede my first Goodman post which I wrote last year with something that better reflects my feelings about the restaurant. I love my meat sweats obviously, and in the twelve months following the first visit, I’ve returned to many a fabulous meal at Goodman in Maddox Street. With the launch of their City branch, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to formally update position with Goodman.

In the last few months, the Goodman team have been frantically preparing the launch of their second restaurant in London, quite fittingly in the heart of the Square Mile, to cater to testosterone charged suits. David who represents Goodman’s front of house had kindly extended the new branch’s 50% soft launch discount to me, and so I was more than delighted to go along and spend my money to gorge even more steak for half the price.

The missus and I went on a Thursday night, and expectedly, the room was rammed with pressed shirts and metrosexual hairdos – it’s like the perfect hunting ground for single females looking for a plump husband to be. You know who you are.

The new restaurant is also quite alot bigger and buzzier than the Maddox branch which was always abit cramped, especially with how the bar is laid out. Same furnishings, brawny woods and hanging lamps and black and white photographs (at 16×24 instead of 8x10s .. I think .. ), and a much higher ceiling, exposing pipework, albeit masked with black paint. Everything is brought to the same level, where at Maddox street, it overspilled into the basement. The kitchen is open to the dining room and the dry ageing room, is visible to all diners as it behind a glass panel. Abit like an aquarium of steak. The new bar is massive.

As any steak lover will tell you, a great steak house lives or dies by the quality of beef they use, and whether if it had been properly hung or not. Not only do Goodman have their own dry ageing facilities in house, they also source their meat from arguably the best butchers in Britain, as well as the best imported beef they can get their hands on. Oh yeah, there’s also the small matter of installing a Josper grill and taming this temperamental beast of charcoal, which some kitchens have reported failure with. Family and friends whom I have dragged with me to Goodman Mayfair have always been thoroughly impressed with the bafflingly fantastic charcoal-infused steaks.

As I had the power of a 50% discount on me, I didn’t hesitate with creating my bespoke platter by selecting from their best stock. As they always do, the waiters will present you with a platter of cuts to help you decide what you want, always spot on with showing off and explaining what they’ve got in their ageing rooms, and service is the City branch is at the same top notch levels as Maddox street.

Before I talk about steaks, I want to recommend the Frank Hederman smoked salmon (£11) , Lobster bisque (£7.50) , the Russian sweet herrings (£7, a nod wink to Goodman’s owners) and the excellent in-house made pate (£7.5) as excellent choices to start, if you are so inclined to have a starter that is. They might specialise in steak, but the lobster bisque is so seriously good that it can rival more eloquent peers in the city. I skipped starters during this visit however. Just for the record, I do not rate Goodman’s burger, I find the patty to be too salty. Go to a Byron if you want minced meat, Goodman is all about the steaks.

Ok back to the meatfest.

You see the superbly well marbled piece of beef in the foreground from the picture above? Well that’s the Chilean Wagyu sirloin (NY Strip to be precise) with a marbling score of 7 to 8 at £60 for 300g. Seriously, look at the marbling on that beef! See the sirloin on the top right? Well that’s basically the same cut, but a Prime USDA. Visual evidence of why Wagyus are prized as they are. The fat content is incomparable.

On the ‘regular’ menu, they list the same cut but with a lower marbling score at 3-4, for £45.

By the way, when you visit a Goodman, forget the menu, always ask for what’s well hung in the ageing room. The chef will usually cater to heavier weights and cut them specially if you request it. Personally, I don’t scrutinise dry ageing times so much, because it varies from breed to breed, some requiring more time and some less, so if the chef says it’s ready, then I’ll believe him.

Anyway, I ordered Goodman’s triumvirate of meat – (Darragh) O’Sheas Angus Grass fed Bone-in Ribeye 450g (£26) ; (Erm, should be Nebraska) Prime USDA Angus Corn fed Bone-in Ribeye 700g (£43.75) ; Chilean Wagyu Sirloin score 7-8 300g (£60). Unfortunately, they didn’t have a Wagyu ribeye carrying that marbling score, which would have made from a better comparison (not to mention a much softer and even fattier cut), but we made do.

We waited a good 20 minutes (or so) before the steaks landed, and waiting is a good sign, since steaks really need to be rested so that their juices are retained and redistributed evenly before being sliced and served. Probably even more time considering how thick they serve ‘em.

Here’s our steak platter (£26 + £43.75 + £60 = £129.75 )

Beautiful innit? I prefer to have my steaks served as a platter and pre-sliced. The steaks look plump, and juices aren’t overflowing (Although they are probably cut on a board before plating up) on the plate, which is a good sign. I love their bearnaise but the stilton and red wine sauce is really interesting, we ordered both.

Time to taste it!

L to R. Wagyu Sirlion , O’Sheas Ribeye , USDA Ribeye. What say you? Is that a perfect 51C?

To my eyes, that’s perfectly medium rare. General comments first – it appears Ollie and his team have mastered the dark arts of manning the Josper Grill. The surface is crustily charred, inside the juices burst out as you bite into them. Oh and the signature, smoke-filled charcoal flavour too.. Mmm… As far as I can tell, Goodman City’s Josper skills are equal to John’s at Goodman Mayfair.

Right then, the Chilean Wagyu. Fantastic. It is pretty soft for a sirloin, as soft as the O’Sheas and USDA ribeyes. The meat is very plump, mellow beefiness, and it is noticeably oilier than the other cuts, in fact it oozes oil, giving rise to a very viscous mouthfeel. I suppose the oil is due to the inherent marbling, some of it hadn’t yet melted away completely and is still visible. It’s just an extremely pleasant experience of steak.

Fat equals flavour, and the fat on the wagyu is on the mellow side. No intense blue cheesiness here, very graceful stuff. The oily mouthfeel is really fantastic, it is sixty quid for 300g of pampered cows massaged daily, which listen to classical music and allegedly drunk on beer most of their lifetime… it had better be amazing and it was.

Here’s a close up of the USDA ribeye (£43.75 for 700g). It’s no slouch either. Surprisingly, it is the softest of the three cuts, albeit the wagyu was not a ribeye. Just look at how easily the fork pierces the meat. Unsurprisingly, the meat carried the least flavour of the lot, sweeter and even more mellow, but superbly tender. This is a cut that benefits from even more fattiness, as that helps to boost those sugarcane notes. Nothing abit of bearnaise can’t solve though. I still really enjoy eating USDA ribeyes, the tenderness is unmatched. Well maybe a matsusaka or a true kobe steak.

Finally, the superb O’Sheas ribeye, 450g for a fantastic price of £26. You know I love O’sheas, I think this Irish family butchers consistently produce the best beef of the British Isles. If you step into Darragh’s shop in Knightsbridge, it doesn’t stink like a usual butcher shop, instead there is a fragance of bovinity in the air. The only thing better than slapping a monster Cote de Boeuf on my Le Creuset, is to have Goodman slap it in their Josper. The beef is tender – as is any well hung beef to be quite honest – although it has a nice firmness about it as well. I find that with O’Sheas, it is all about those blue cheese flavours, it is carries much more beefiness than the other two breeds, the fat is rich. As an aside, I feel that Scotch steaks carry even more rich beefiness… but perhaps just a little too much for some, especially when one is having it bloody. I think the O’sheas strike a great balance between being affordable and being well balanced in terms of flavour and tenderness. If you don’t want to overspend, the O’Sheas are a solid choice.

It is all a matter of personal preference really, and to be quite honest, these cuts of beef are at the very top end of what your money will buy, at least in London. Well hung beef, Check. Well marbled, check. Grilled over charcoal, check. Crusty exterior, check. Well rested meat, check. Whippy bearnaise, check. Affordable jammy, medium bodied, easy drinking reds by the glass, check. Buzzy steakhouse atmosphere, check. It is a cracking steakhouse which gets alot of things right, especially the atmosphere. Ask for a quick whizz around in the dry ageing room too, if the restaurant is not too busy… do try and put your nose close to the beef and smell them. They should be sweet smelling. Anyway, the bill before discount would have been £176, which includes two sides and two glasses of red and service, but we paid £95.48 – a generous £68.88 soft launch concession, and which makes it £47 each. Of course it’s expensive, but considering the sheer quality of meat and the care that has gone into preparing it, you do get what you pay for. I know some of you prefer the All British Ginger Pig stuff at Hawksmoor (which is great as well), but I prefer Goodman’s for its low-lit steakhouse atmosphere, and what with it constantly being packed out with men in suits, must mean they are getting the job done properly. The next time you plan a steak dinner, consider a medium rare, O’Sheas bone-in ribeye at Goodman.

The Gist of It

Goodman City
Steak, £60pp
11 Old Jewry EC2R 8DU
Tel: 020 7600 8220
Tube: Bank

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All text and photography on this blogpost is copyright and belongs to Kang Leong, LondonEater.com. If you repost this without my permission, bad things will happen. So please don’t do it.

In the last few weeks, I embarked on a hugely carnivorous adventure to sample some of London’s serious purveyors of the bovine to bring you this mini-guide to London’s most well-hung. By far my favourite newsletter to put out yet. LondonEater presents The Steak Issue.

Dear fellow London Eater,

The LondonEater Newsletter, Vol 2, Issue 3

Steak is both functional and glamourous. Nothing compliments a whizzy jammy new-world red like a beautifully charred steak with a juicy red centre, the beef well-hung before, and well-rested after. Yes, beef is on the rise in London, chefs are modeling their output after New York’s famed steakhouses, Peter Luger, Robert’s to name a couple. To emulate Big Apple steak, restaurants are not only importing Prime USDA meat, they are also importing the vaunted charcoal grill (made in Spain) known as the Josper which is primarily capable of infusing a signature charcoal smokiness. ‘Sealing the meat’ is the art steak-houses engage, that is to sear the steak to produce a dry, crusty caramalised outer layer whilst ensuring the centre is still juicy. The greater the contrast, the greater the effect of amplifiying the spewing juices inside the steak. Sealing the juices is a myth, and largely an illusion. Finish off with a whippy béarnaise, or for purists, rock salt and you have the perfect meal.

I have prepared a short guide below with links to more detailed articles and reviews which I have been adding to my website over the last few weeks. Here I have concatenated what I hope will be useful links to help you find the best steaks in London. Enjoy…

best,

Kangpad…. yeah I got an iPad, and it’s great, run out and get one.

The Basics

Lets talk about Beef
We start with a holistic view of the wonderful world of beef, with a walk-through the major cuts, done-ness and types of breeds around the world, including a mystically super-marbled type of beef known as Matsusaka.

An Illustrated Guide to steak cuts
Have you always wondered about the differences between a sirloin and a ribeye? The significance of dry aging, what makes a Josper Grill so special, and what is the main difference between grain and grass fed beef, USA versus Britain. Lots of photographs.

My Recommendations

Butchers

Ginger Pig
Their East Moor farm boasts the largest herd of Longhorns in the UK. Longhorns are Britain’s oldest pure breed, the beef has great marbling characteristics and GP also dry-aged their own. Probably the best of England has to offer, fans include Heston Blumenthal.

O’Shea’s Butchers
Dermot and Darragh O’Shea are 7th and 8th generation Irish butchers respectively. Their family business was established in Tippery in 1789. Darragh O’Shea runs the Knightbridge shop. I believe their family farms Angus breeds. They dry-age in-shop at Knightsbridge. I bought a 40-day hung cote de boeuf which I thought was absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable marbling, plenty of juicy beefiness. And ever so so fragrant. I am beginning to be believe the best of Britain are O’Sheas.

Jack O’Shea
Jack is Darragh’s brother, technically speaking Jack and Darragh’s produce are similar. JOS is located inside the Selfridges food hall, with dry-aging rooms there. I tried a t-bone and a ribeye which were fabulous. The cote de boeuf from Darragh’s was juicier though. I usually gaze deeply into the meat counter whenever I am at Selfridges to marvel at the marbling… the marbling indeed. They also import Prime USDAs.

Wholefoods
Scotch beef is hard to come by in London these days, but you can get good Angus beef at Wholefoods in Kensington. You can see the impressive dry aging cabinets behind the meat counter. The beef carries wonderful grassy flavour. A firm tenderness, if that makes sense.

Restaurants

Premium £35++ per steak

Goodman
O’Sheas, Nebraska Prime, NZ Wagyu are all on their menu. They also have their own dry aging rooms. Grain fed proponents and they dry age their own steaks downstairs, this is why I love them. The sheer choice of top quality beef is unbelievable. They have perfected their Josper grilling methods managing to create a super crispy caramalised exterior, maintaining the juicy bloody centre and infusing a sizzling taste of charcoal that marries beautifully with the natural fragrance of well-hung beef. Their starters are ably amazing as well, featuring Frank Hederman Irish smoked salmon, a cracking lobster bisque and a creamy seafood risotto made with lobster butter. This is my favourite steakhouse in London, if you want to spend money on the best cuts of beef, Goodman is the answer. I recommend Prime USDA bone-in ribeye (700g to share) or the O’Shea’s Porterhouse (700g to share as well) when available, with truffled chips, the stilton and bearnaise sauce.

Hawksmoor
They use the excellent 35 day aged longhorn stuff from Ginger Pig. Their steaks are beautifully cooked in the josper, juicy steaks. Bloggers love this place, but I prefer Goodman.

Maze Grill
Turn right for the Grill at Jason Atherton (or I should say James Durrant’s) well received Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Personally I have not been to this restaurant at time of writing, but rest assured it is on my list. Reviews are rare, but the general sentiment is that Maze Grill know their meat. Their specialities are Creekstone prime USDA, corn fed, aged for approximately 35 days and Australian Wagyu ‘9th grade’ Gold style. Creekstones are also used in Peter Luger in New York. A Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

Mid-range £25-£35 per steak

Chapters All Day Dining
This is the sister restaurant to Andrew MacLeish’s Michelin starred Chapter One. All day dining is headed by Chef Trevor Tobin and located in Blackheath. He had done a tour of famous New York steak restaurants including Peter Luger and Balthazar to see how the Yanks did it, prior to opening shop at Chapters, additionally, he had helped the Goodman team headed by John Cadieux to get their operations running. John trained on the Josper at Chapters before heading Goodman. Their restaurant manager informed me that Chapters are one of only nine restaurants to own a Josper (Hosper) grill in the UK too. As it is based in Blackheath, steaks are alot more affordable than the Central London haunts, range of meat is limited. Hanger steak only £11.50.

Hix Oyster and Chop House
This was Mark Hix’s first restaurant in London, opened in 2008 to critical acclaim, two years on, the rather elegant philosophy of oyster and steak is still going strong. Hanger steaks are served with a cross-sectioned whole bone marrow stuffed with garlic and breadcrumbs and then baked. The béarnaise is excellent at Hix, subtle creamy rather than buttery.

Budget up to £25

Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote
This is based on the famous steakfrites restaurant that began life in Paris, now an international sensation, think of it as a kind of fast food steak, aside from puddings, that’s all they serve. There are two in London, Marleybone and the City. For £22, you start with a lettuce and walnut salad and then tuck into two servings of entrecote, the second serving kept warm as you eat the first. Served with frites that would make any Parisian proud and smothered in the famous butter sauce.

Eastside Inn Just the onglet and frites, £18.
This is not a specialist steak restaurant, rather it is an exceptionally great French restaurant owned by Bjorn van der Horst, formerly of La Noisette. Their version of steak frites uses the Onglet (Hanger steak which is cut from the diaphragm of the steer, close to kidneys) and their definitive homage to the Parisian bistro classic give the essential dish a breath of fresh air. Exemplary production values. This is the best onglet steak I’ve ever had in London and I highly recommend it.

My favourites right now

1. Zucca
2. Koya
3. Eastside Inn
4. Hind’s Head
5. The Fat Duck

What I am up to online elsewhere…

I now occasionally write restaurant reviews for Redvisitor which is an amazingly awesome Travel website which has only just launched a few weeks earlier. I am preparing a feature on London restaurants right now which should go online soon. Do give Redvisitor a quick look see.

I also wrote an 8 page ‘Insider’s Guide to London’ for The Address Magazine recently. You can view a digital version of the magazine here. Flip to page 93.

Look out for my quirkier blog posts and additional restaurant reviews which do not appear on LE at Lastminute.com’s blog where I am a one of their many bloggers. My review of JW Steakhouse is due to go online sometime in the middle of next week over there.

In the next issue Fantastic new openings by crazily talented chefs are opening left, right and centre, in about two weeks from now, I will aim to showcase the latest and greatest and provide just a snapshot of the exciting openings to come in the months ahead, including Heston’s London debut. Stay tuned.

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What could be more attractive than the idea of a no-frills chophouse. There are lots of similar oyster bars around London now, each featuring their very own centre-piece of a cool-to-touch marble topped long bar table with its variety of brassed high stools, and a snoozy, utopian, languorous ambiance. It is the original idea of eating out, an enjoyable, holiday-factor that is at times misunderstood and lost altogether in this city. I blame the weather, as we are tightly wrapped up most of the year, the numbing cold contributing to the habitual tighter-arse in an exercise of upright eating and upright seating, but not anymore, not in May at least, ray-bans and flip-flops. Why so serious right.

As a fellow restaurant collector, you must have read about Mark’s great surname in copy online or otherwise. His name is now attached to four restaurants, three in London and one in Dorset. His namesake haunt in Soho is said to be the crowing gem in the growing Hix empire, his latest addition to Selfridges not so well received, and I’ve heard little aside from the stunning views at the Dorset one. Hix is the ultimo heavyweight London sleb chef who has been partly credited with spearheading the revitalisation of British gastronomy. He had spent most of his career (17 years) with the Caprice constellation of luxury restaurants, stewarding then Corbin-King productions such at the Ivy, Le Caprice, Scotts and J.Sheekey to pre eminence. He doesn’t need his own TV show to be famous, he writes a food column instead. With a name like ‘Hix’, I would imagine is instantly marketable, ultra modernist, monosyllabic, faddish, at Hix, one could be eating fazzling pop-rocks with powdered samphire crystals. As oppose to say ‘Kang’s’ where you might accidentally choke on minty lambchops. I’m digressing.

The Oyster and Chop House was Hix’s début restaurant after going solo in 2008, situated very close to the Smithfield meat mart, and actually on the site of a once famous fish restaurant. Informal, Anglo-Bistro, ceiling fans, unpolished wooden floors and echoing chatter with sound waves bounced off from the high ceilings. Redolent of an old-world ambiance which at my tender age, I have really only read about in iBooks and on Wikipedia.

The decor is suppose to evoke a sense of the ol’ chophouses of London perhaps to bring back a time when porter beer was served with large slabs of beef in porterhouses, which some argue gave birth to the naming of a particular cut of steak. Is it a British invention or was it a pub in Manhattan? Hotly debated, you tell me, as a reference point, I managed to find a New York Times article written in 1909 that considers the Porterhouse in more fleshy detail, aptly titled “Porterhouse Steak”.

In keeping with the old world design, the menu decidedly harks back to the days when oysters and poverty were synonymous. Starters such as Steak and oyster pie; Lamb sweetbreads with braised gem heart and bacon and pork crackling with apple sauce stand out from this most British of menus. Mutton curry, whole roasted black bream and of course Porterhouse steaks feature as mains.

I decided on a quick lunch at HO&CH on Friday to refuel before a laborious afternoon meeting, Charz joined me for lunch on her day off. Naturally being the poor people we were, we decided to kick off this swift one with a selection of Loch Ryan (Scotch) Natives and rock oysters from Carlingford Lough (Irish) and (of course) Maldon (English) respectively. There were only two other rock oyster choices available, which we didn’t try.

It is hard to place myself in a time when oysters were not luxury. They were once in abundance, but that was way back in Victorian times (some history here). Oysters are of course known for their aphrodisiac qualities mainly due to it’s high zinc content for male virility and legend has it that Casanova consumed sixty a day to keep himself, in shape.

More trivia, natives are usually pricier than rock oysters for its more limited availability. Natives take about five years reach maturity and they are only available during the months where there is an “R”, ie, not May through August. The age of Natives are said to give way to a more complex, subtler and metallic palate, where as Rock oysters, which are available all year round, are sweeter, punchier taste.

We were into the tail end of May at time of visit, though HO&CH do not seem to be affected by an arcane Act of Parliament which prohibits Natives from being fished in the summer days from May to August, or indeed if it still applies. There is another more practical reason for not eating Natives during this period as it is said the flesh is milkier and generally less exciting as this is spawning time… but perhaps farming methods have changed?

Speaking of farming methods, I googled this and most farmed oysters are not only regularly tested for harmful microbes, but are usually placed in a UV filtered system to kill bacteria before it goes out to restaurants. Oysters can go through as much as 10 litres of water per hour, so imagine the amount of baddies that go through your internal filtration system if it weren’t ‘cleaned’ artificially before consumption. So don’t go shucking stray oyster at the beach, however tempting.

Shucked but served, covers on. I started with the round-edged Lock Fyne Natives which exhibited the soily, minerality usually associated with Natives. Mmm… close but no cigar. These Natives tasted a little flaccid in comparison with my previous experiences, and it was a little on the small side. Also, I would have preferred it to be just a tad icier, but it could have been the weather that were melting the oysters, though honestly, oyster criticism is surely redundant literature. One can hardly go wrong with live ones. The Maldon Rocks exhibited intensely salty and fishy sensations, but rather surprisingly, I preferred the Carlingford Rocks the most, it carried a cleaner taste, just a bit livelier for some reason. I am hardly the shellfish connoisseur, though you would be proud to know that I avoided seasoning my oysters with the vinaigrette, opting for just a squidge of lemon and natural flavour. Gosh this is the weather for oysters isnt it? I still prefer Bentley’s for oysters.

Hanger Steak with baked bone marrow and bearnaise (£17.50)

I’ve been obsessed with steak all throughout May, and if you have been following my reviews recently, you’ll know that I have a strange fascination with the this cut of meat. Flavour of the month. The hanger, otherwise, the onglet is also at times referred to the ‘butcher’s steak’ as it was originally the cut of beef the butcher kept for himself. Technically speaking it is not a conventional steak cut, it ‘hangs’ from the steer’s diaphragm, and it is situated very close to the animal’s kidneys, which is what gives the meat its wonderfully pungent offal-like flavour and a sinewy tender texture akin to kidney.

OK on to the pseudo judging. Full marks for serving it pre-sliced (and across the grain), it was also perfectly rare. However, the steak itself was a little dry, perhaps too much charring, the exterior was a crusty armor, and the little drips of blood had solidify on the plate. Unfortunately, I forgot to query the waitress regarding the whereabouts of their stock and as Mr Hix is such a well connected individual, I wondered if it was sourced in a bespoke manner , directly from a butcher, rather than from simply tapping up Smithfields next door. My notes suggested a mild flavour, one could hardly detect the pungency of kidney. I also detected a very noticeable burnt bitterness on the palate, I’m not entirely sure if this was because of the grill or if it was inherent to the meat. The steak did not exhibit much barbecue-like flavour, plus I’m quite certain it was served unsalted. A raw output, in the sense that it was so basic. I would have preferred this just a tad less crust on the outside, and perhaps a little more juiciness, the meat itself was good, but I’ve had better hanger steaks in London. A particularly great one at Eastside Inn (which I wrote about here). Fortunately, a deliciously milky béarnaise accompanied the steak, masking the otherwise tepid dryness. I really enjoyed the cross-sectioned bone marrow, baked with what appears to be garlic, parsley and breadcrumbs, not unlike garlic bread with blobby bits of marrow giving way to a big-bodied flavour. Wholesome. There is little doubt then, steak and marrow make an excellent combo. I also ordered the skinny frites (£4) which were ok.

Mark Hix was present at his restaurant when we visited, sipping coffee whilst being surrounded by an army of very attractive PR girls (I assume) pitching ideas to him as I tune in via the grapevine. “Mark, we could this” , “Mark, or we could that”, “Mark, all hail Caesar”. I didn’t recognise him at first (such is my ignorance) though he looks exactly like his photographs plastered across his website and most newspaper reviews. Tousled silver hair and all.

I skipped dessert, and I enjoyed the overall experience. I wanted oysters and steak and it was delivered as suggested. A most pleasant Anglo affair. The atmosphere is the real winner, I hadn’t a clue what a ‘real’ chophouse is suppose to feel like, but this one is certainly cosy. I think there are several London gourmet pubs which will compare well against HO&CH, especially in 2010, but having said that this is a restaurant I would return to, especially to try the steak & oyster pies. Simple pleasures eh.

(PS: Haha, sorry Marina, I rambled past 1500 words to describe two dishes.)

The Gist of It

Hix Oyster & Chop House Official Site
Oysters, Grill & Pudding £40 per person, Britpop.
36-37 Greenhill Rents, Cowcross Street, EC1M 6BN
Tel: 020 7017 193
Tube: Farringdon

Glitter, Glitter : Time Out London ; Londonelicious ; World Foodie Guide ; Intoxicating Prose
; Fay Maschler

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A Prologue

Chapters All Day Dining is located in Blackheath, South East London. Once the old Chapter Two to Chapter One, the latter a One Michelin Starred restaurant, and the former re-imagined in 2008 into the less formal all day dining venue it is today. A particular trek from West London personally, and my first time venturing to these parts.

Alright, so I wanted to write more about steak. I say more, since I had written a little piece about Beef a few months ago, and I thought rather than write a straight up non-review of a bespoke blogger event (which is not very useful anyway), I thought I’d use this backstage pass to talk about the salient points regarding the wonderful world of steaks. This dinner also gave me a little insight into how London restaurants prepared steaks today, particularly how restaurants are moulding their business to replicate famed New York haunts.

Meet the Chef

Trevor Tobin is the head chef at Chapters who cooked dinner for us. Us being a contingent made up of Niamh, Douglas, Denise, Carly and Luiz. Along with Exec Chef Andrew MacLeish, he had done a tour of famous New York steak restaurants including Peter Luger and Balthazar to see how the Yanks did it. Additionally, he had helped the Goodman team headed by John Cadieux to get their operations running. John trained on the Josper at Chapters prior to opening Goodman. Chapters are serious about their steak. Phillip Urasala, restaurant manager, informed me that Chapters are one of only nine restaurants to own a Josper (Hosper) grill in the UK.

Chapter One: Introducing steak

A well marbled, well hung, 10 oz rib eye on the bone, preferably Prime USDA, Angus, cooked over charcoal at 650 C. Perhaps some blue cheese or gorgonzola and creamed spinach on the side with triple cooked chips. Not forgetting a small bearnaise sauce, or maybe a choice of a bordelaise with bone marrow. For me, that’s the perfect meal. But what makes a good steak so special? Why does Wagyu cost ten times as much as a Sainsbury basic range and what makes a Josper grill the perfect steak-searing machine? I just love steak, and I wanted to collate my thoughts about it.

Fat = Flavour

Great steak is all about marbling. Marbling being the marbled pattern that is created from the intramuscular fat inherent of the meat. What you are looking for are those creamy yellow dotted bits. The more creamy bits you see, the higher the marbling, the fattier it is, the more potential for flavour. All the flavour is in the fat, folks. Marbling is partly genetics (Like say Wagyu, Angus or Longhorn showing more marbling than say a Charolais) but it is also affected by feeding methods. Length of time, feedstock (grain or grass … or beer..) and age of cattle also affect marbling. The secret in achieving good marbling equates to expensive beef. Marbling also contributes to tenderness as well, and as you suspected, the higher the fat content, the tenderer it would be. In Japan, the quality of marbling determines the grade of the beef, and the price is determined in an auction, hence the ‘market price’. As a point of reference, Prime USDA carries a marbling ‘score’ of 6, Japanese Wagyu is as high as 12, though I have seen 14th grade Wagyu being sold in Asia before. Beautifully marbled beef is suppose to smell great, almost fragrantly perfumery. There is also another reason for fragrance, and tenderness: Aging.

The importance of Dry Aging against Wet Aging

We can’t have a discussion about steak without talking about aging. Aging beef is perhaps the most crucial step in preparing the meat as it allows it to achieve much more flavour and tenderness than if you cook it straight from the abattoir. The process breaks down connective tissue so as to tenderize it. Aging is the natural tenderising process, as oppose to artifical tenderising powder which mimics the effect of natural enzymes breaking down the meat. There are two types of aging: Dry aging and Wet Aging.

Dry Aging involves hanging entire halves of carcasses or selected premium cuts in a cool, dry area to allow the beef to age naturally. When dry aging, the natural enzymes in the meat are allowed to break down the fibrous tissue which acts to tenderise the beef. Dry aging also means that the beef loses water content as it evaporates over time, leading to a loss of weight but which means that the beef gains concentration in terms of flavour. Dry aging is typically between 14 to 28 days, sometimes it can be as much at 40 days and at times up to six months. Dry aging also causes a layer of fungal ‘crust’ (which doesn’t affect the meat inside) on the outside. This is the reason why dry aged beef needs to be trimmed and this means throwing away as much as 20% of the initial weight of the meat, more if it is dry-aged longer than usual. As you can appreciate, Dry-aging is an expensive process, but it is the gold standard in enhancing flavour and tenderness. A well-hung piece of meat is dull red, instead of a fresh red. This is why premium butchers and high end steak houses are so boastful of their on site dry aging facilities. The next time you go to Goodman, ask for a tour. Dave, the restaurant manager will happily take you downstairs.

Wet Aging is to vacuum seal the meat such that no moisture is lost, the natural enzymes do their work, but in a slower way than dry aging. Unlike dry-aged meat which requires a more intensive surrounding, wet aging requires less maintenance. Basically, you are leaving the bag of beef to rot in its own juices, in a fridge over a couple of weeks. With the moisture retained, it is thought that wet aging takes three times the length of time to achieve the same flavour concentration as dry aging. A process that was pioneered in the 70s, it quickly became the preferred method for aging beef in the States since it is cheaper. Most lower grade US beef (USDA Choice for example) is wet aged. The beef isn’t as tender and not as flavoursome as dry aging of course. For more info, have a look here.

The moral of the story: Always go for dry-aged beef.

The Steak Cuts

Depending on which part of the animal the steak is cut from; it can be leaner, it can be fattier, it can more flavoursome, it can even be an offal masquerading as a steak. In this section, I thought it would be helpful to discuss the major characteristics of cuts, how to identify them and why people prefer one over the other.

The Fillet

The fillet is easily to identify: It looks like a red log. When sliced, it looks like a red medallion. It is also the leanest cut of the animal. Hence the redness. Marbling is usually minimal relative to the rest of the animal. The tenderness is largely because this is the least exercised part of the animal. Since it is so lean, it is also usually quite bland. But then equally the high degree of tenderness makes it perfect for a saucy recipe or having it to be paired with another more intense ingredient, like foie gras in a Tournedos Rossini or perhaps a bacon wrapped filet mignon and an oyster-stuffed carpetbag steak.

Some taster notes here on this: Chef Trevor kicked off the tasting with a Cumbrian fillet aged in his meat locker for 18 to 19 days. The beef is sourced from W.G. at Smithfields. Cooked in the Josper to medium rare. He chose to only gently sear the exterior so it was still as tender as the meat inside. He kept the cooking light to match the delicate nature of the fillet. Served closer to rare than medium rare, well-rested. The meat was so butter-tender. British Beef is mostly grass fed, and I was surprised how much flavour this meat had. Of course, this meat carried the smoky charcoal sensations, hallmarks of the Josper.

The Ribeye

You can think of the ribeye as the anti-fillet. Cut from the rib section, it is usually very fatty and you will see a high degree of marbling which leads to a juicily tender cut of meat. It is usually the 2nd most expensive cut – after the fillet – but it is the most prized cut amongst beef lovers, including myself. Because of the high fat content, it is usually seared abit longer to allow the fat to melt and baste the meat for flavour and juiciness.

Trevor prepped an Oz ribeye, Hereford and dry aged in-house for 40 days. Note the marbling! As you can probably tell, this meat is different from the fillet. The chef chose to caramalise the outer to a crispy crunch, the meat is closer to a medium than a medium-rare. I wasn’t too impressed with it though, the cut was surprisingly tough for a forty day aged ribeye, and the fatty bits were thin on flavour, no blue cheese here. Sorry Australia. On another note, Trevor did inform me that he has aged Australian meat to 180 days before, which as one can imagine, leads to pretty interesting results. Not today.

Bone-in Ribeye (Cote de Boeuf) and the Sirloin

The only cut better than a ribeye, is a ribeye on the bone, the cote de boeuf. The extra fat around the bone gives the meat extra flavour, oh yes it makes a difference, a juicier end product.

The shot below also depicts a sirloin (right). The sirloin is cut from the rear of the animal. There are two types of sirloin, the top is cut from just under the tenderloin, it is tenderer and is usually the cut throw into the grill. The bottom sirloin is tougher. I liken the sirloin to the happy medium in between the fillet and the ribeye. It has the flavour comparable to the ribeye, but it isn’t too mushy, while tender it has a very firm chewiness which people appreciate. I tend to view the sirloin as a very balanced cut of beef. Not too chewy, not too much fat, not too lean. I still prefer the ribeye though, fat rocks my world.

These are Chapter’s most prized cuts. Both are Prime USDA steaks from Omaha, Longhorn grain fed cattle. The meat is pre wet-aged (I guess on the flight over via NY?) and then dry aged for 18 days in the chef’s locker. So this is unorthodox… I wonder if Goodman does the same.

Now this is what we’re talking about. I immediately noticed the tenderness of the ribeye, much more so in comparison to the Oz version. Grain fed beef also takes on a much different taste, cleaner and dare I say ‘sweeter’ than grass fed beef. The fatty bits have a very distinct blue cheese flavour, almost verging on a gorgonzola with the same sort of creaminess, hallmarks of prime American.

Le Onglet or The Hanger.

This is sometimes affectionately referred to as the ‘butcher’s steak’ as it was originally the cut of beef the butcher kept for himself. Where it was once neglected by diners, this exotic cut of meat is now lusted after by steak-lovers for its strong offal-like flavour and a sinewy tender texture akin to kidney. There is only one onglet to each carcass. Technically speaking it is not a conventional steak cut, it ‘hangs’ from the steer’s diaphragm, and it is situated very close to the animal’s kidneys, which is what gives the meat its wonderful gamey flavour. The onglet requires abit of skill in prep, in that it has a noticeable central fibre which joins two pieces of onglets and there is very noticeable grain (like streaks) in the meat which when served, it must be sliced across the grain. Also, because of the grain, it is usually served rare, any more heat and it becomes too chewy.

This example is one-half of the conjoining onglet, English beef, grass fed. Served rare as it should be, it mimicked the chewy texture and flavour of kidney. Personally, I would have preferred it to be a tad more rare. Though, I could tell he was very scared to burnt this cut in the josper, as it wasn’t as caramalised and did not exhibit as much smokiness as the rest of the steak we had on the night. In my humble opinion, I think that because the hanger steak needs closer attention, perhaps an open grill or even pan-frying is better suited to delivering perfect onglets as opposed to the guesswork in a super-hot josper where you basically give up control to the charcoal. Personally, I feel that the French do better hanger steaks than we do, with a preference of pan-frying it.

The Porterhouse and The T-bone

Can you tell which is which? The Porterhouse and the T-bone are essentially the same except for one major difference: The former has a larger piece of fillet attached on one-side of the bone. On the other side, is a sirloin. In the picture below, you can clearly see that the one on the left is the porterhouse.

T-bone/Porterhouse steaks are the best of both of worlds. On one side, you have a tender fillet, on the other side a juicy sirloin. The meat on the bone is of course, a flavour-bomb. Plus it looks great. The porterhouse is the choice cut in this case, and it can be an incredibly satisfying experience tucking into one, especially when you finish, desperately digging into bone and then simply resorting to sucking on the it.

These are Prime USDAs and as you’d expect, succulent and tender, As we approached the end of the tasting, I found myself desperately trying cram more of steak in. I couldn’t do it.

Ok we are on to the big finish….

BRITAIN VS AMERICA.

So this is what we had:

West – Prime USDA Porterhouse and T-bones
North – Prime USDA Bone-in ribeye and Sirloin
East – Scotch T-bone and Sirloin
South – Scotch Bone-in ribeye and T-bone

British reps step up step up… Scotch Angus, dry aged 21 days, grass fed.

Mad props. The scotch ribeye has bags of beefy flavour, like a kind of clean flavour, purer. It is however much chunkier and firmer in general when compared to USDA. On the other hand, the Prime USDA exhibited a nuttier, creamier flavour, with a tinge of blue-cheese. It is alot more juicier and it is markedly more tender as the beef is more marbled after all. The last time I did a steak comparison at Goodman, the American stuff also came up top, personally. It’s the super tenderness, and the sweeter beefiness.

Debunking the Josper Grill

Despite popular belief that this kick-arse grill is all-American, it really isn’t. It’s Spanish. So just what exactly is it? And what makes it such a special steak-grilling machine anyway?

So this is what a Josper Grill- pronounced ‘Hosper’ – looks like. And I was surprised how small it was. Maybe measuring 3m x 3m only. It is basically an oven stuffed with charcoal that has refractory materials that can withstand temperatures up to 1000C (I’ll dispute the chef and say it goes to an average of 650C to 700C). The chemical engineer in me thinks that the refractory material on either side of the grill which prevents the intense heat from melting kitchen appliances around it are made from a magnesium alloy – that’s what is used to line the walls of blast furnaces which melt iron ores to make steel.

So the choice of charcoal is important. Different types of charcoal embers will create different types of heat, and I imagine pass on the flavour of the ‘smoke’ on to the meat. Chapters uses Argentinian charcoal, I’m not sure what Goodman uses. Because the josper is a sealed oven with its fuel source being charcoal, it needs to be opened every now and again to let air in (once the oxygen is exhausted) to reignite the flames from the charcoal. It quite literally sets the steaks on fire.

There are only reportedly nine Josper grills in and around London. We’re not sure how many exactly, but not many UK based restaurants have one. Let’s name drop. Maze Grill, Bellavista, L’anima, Hawskmoor, Goodman, Chapters Blackheath, Chapter One, La Chapelle…. and one more which we cant confirm yet. Circus? The Big Easy? El Pirata, maybe.

Our steak odyssey ended with Trevor showing us his meat locker chock full of beef. Here he is showing off his American prime rib. Note the seven ribs, Brit beef only has five.

In the end, this was a satisfying meal, Trevor surely knows how to grill a piece of meat, additionally he supplemented his steaks with an assortment of beautiful starters, especially the risotto in wild garlic and creme fraiche.

The pristine cream-coloured risotto was heavenly, it was textured like a smooth rice pudding, but it had rich aromas of wild garlic which translated into an intense flavour on the palate. A really lovely plate of food I thought, simple too.

Of course if I had to make comparisons, I think Goodman still comes out top, but that is mostly down to the sheer choice of meat they serve. O’Shea Irish beef, New Zealand Wagyu, Scotch Angus, Lake District Herefords… top dollar for top quality beef at Goodman, it had better be good. It is roughly £6.25/100g for Goodman’s Nebraska beef. Chapters’ Prime Omaha are a much more affordable £4.50/100g. The Oz Ribeye 320g is under £20 and the hanger steak is only a mere £11.50 for 250g. You do get great value for decent steaks at Chapters and if I lived in Blackheath (and if this meal is anything to go by) I would be confident in Tobin’s team delivering a juicy steak. The bearnaise is whippy, eggy and fragrant. We didn’t try chips so can’t comment.

Thank you Douglas, Trevor and Phillip for putting this together.

Where to Meat in London

I just wanted to close this discussion with a more informed list of steak purveyors.

Butchers

Ginger Pig : East moor farm boasts the largest herd of Longhorns in the UK. Longhorn cattle are Britain’s oldest breed, the beef has great marbling character and GP also dry-aged their own. It is probably the best of English beef, fans include Heston Blumenthal.

O’Shea’s Butchers – Dermot and Darragh O’Shea are 7th and 8th generation Irish butchers respectively. Their family established themselves in Tippery in 1789. Darragh O’Shea runs the Knightbridge shop. I believe their family farms Angus breeds. They dry-age in-shop at Knightsbridge. I bought a 40-day hung cote de boeuf which I thought was absolutely fantastic. Lots of marbling, plenty of juicy flavour. And it smelled so fragrant. I am beginning to be believe the best of British are O’Sheas.

Jack O’Shea – Jack is Darragh’s brother and his business is based in Selfridges, with dry-aging rooms there. I tried a t-bone and a ribeye which were great. The cote de beouf from O’Sheas was juicier though. I usually stare at the meat behind the counter at Selfridges. The marbling.. the marbling! They also import Prime USDAs.

Wholefoods – Scotch beef is hard to come by in London these days, but I think you can get good Angus beef at Wholefoods Kensington. You can see the impressive dry aging cabinets behind the meat counter, and the beef carries wonderful grassy flavour. Firm tenderness.

Restaurants

Goodman – O’Sheas, Nebraska Prime, NZ Wagyu are all on their menu. They also have their own dry aging rooms. Grain fed proponents and they dry age their own steaks downstairs, this is why I love them. Also, I think they have perfected the josper smoked steak. Trust me, you can’t go wrong here. The sheer choice of top quality beef is unbelievable.

Hawksmoor – They use the excellent 35 day aged longhorn stuff from Ginger Pig. Their steaks are beautifully cooked in the josper, juices well sealed. Bloggers love this place, but I prefer Goodman.

Maze Grill – Turn right for the Grill at Jason Atherton (or I should say James Durrant’s) well received Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Now, I’ve not actually been to this restaurant at time of writing, but rest assured it is in my list. Their specialities are Creekstone prime USDA, corn fed, aged 35 days and Australian Wagyu ‘9th grade’ Gold style.

Hey guys do chime in with some suggestions or if there are some glaring errors with my work here. Hope you enjoyed this steak-out. Read the precursor write-up “Let’s talk about beef” here.

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Only the most romantic of cities could have given birth to the L’Entrecote restaurants. It has remained firmly a family business for the better half of the 20th century. The legacy belongs to the family of Paul Gineste de Saurs, the founder, who was then searching for an outlet to sell wine from his family château. He had bought out an Italian restaurant known as the Le Relais de Venise in Porte Maillot, Paris. The Venice Inn. Instead of offering pasta and pizza, Paul’s grand idea was based on an entirely menu-less concept of serving the bistro classic of steak-frites. The entrecote cut was used, sometimes known in France as the contre-fillet, which in this case refers to the sirloin. All diners start their meal with a lettuce and walnut salad, bathed in a mustard vinaigrette. And then, the two servings of steak-frites would follow, the second half kept warm while you ate the first. The formula would be completed with their special butter based sauce smothered all over the steak – a secret recipe.

The Venice Inn still stands today at Porte Maillot, with Paul’s grand children as the current custodians of the L’Entrecote brand. Masses still queue up for their famed steak and chips and the Parisian institution is ever as popular as its inception in 1959. Elsewhere, there is a branch in New York and another in Barcelona. Here in London, we have two. One in the Square Mile, and another in Marylebone. Of course, these are just the ones which had spawned from the original site. Since Paul Gineste de Saurs death in ’66, his children had begun their own chains, operating under slightly different names, Le Relais de L’Entrecote for example. Though all of which stick to the same concept of offering bistro standard steak-frites. Affectionately perhaps, people have come to refer to this chain of restaurants simply as ‘L’Entrecote’, ignoring formal nomenclature. As it turns out, its history has little to do with anything remotely Venetian. Instead, Mr Gineste de Saurs modeled his creation after a dish served in a French restaurant in Geneva. The entrecote and it’s secret butter sauce had been a feature in Cafe de Paris since the forties and remains its signature dish till today. The pièce de résistance is supposedly the special butter based sauce. Its conception credited to Mr Bourbier, the father in law of the then owner of Cafe de Paris, Arthur-Francois Dumont. Today, the secret sauce is so sought after that batches made in the kitchens of the Geneva restaurant are shipped to derivative franchises around the world including Lisbon, Dubai and Riyadh.

We arrived for lunch on Easter Friday, the restaurant suitably busy, families mostly. My dinner partner for the day was Food. By Mark. No reservations, no mayonnaise nor ketchup. I asked for the latter two, to which our French waitress, brunette, hair up in her conforming white apron-ed, black mini dress rebuffed me with her mesmeric French accent : “Non. Only mustard, salt and pepper. Monsiuer.”. It was not the first time I was rejected by a smoky French accent I suppose.

Let’s dig in. Lettuce salad, walnuts, sliced baguette.

There was just a little too much mustard in the salad as every crunch was followed by a hammering of steel pins piercing the surface of my tongue. I mop up the mess with bread. I had only noted this post-meal that the Marylebone branch did not feature any of the family wines. Chateau de Saurs is located in the Gaillac region in the South of France. In it’s place however was a Le Relais de Venise branded house red which appeared to be a Bordeaux.

I asked for my steak rare.

So this is the first of the two servings, the dimensions of the plate equivalently halved in line with portions. Ahh I see, the smell of French butter in the air is due to this sauce. Indeed, it is as many have suggested: a pea-soup, dirty green coloured liquid. The steaks are Scotch, supplied by Donald Russell. It was perfectly rare, if a distinct lack of marbling. As it was still bloody, the texture was chewy but soft, and there were no sizzling bbq flavours from the meat. A piece in the Le Monde suggested that the Cafe de Paris sauce is butter based with chicken liver, fresh thyme , white dijon mustard, salt and pepper. To my untrained palate, I had tasted herbs, citrus and garlic in a buttery broth not unlike the fragrance of say a Thai green curry, sans coriander. My brain was also indicating that mushrooms might be involved, which I suppose meant that this sauce was probably an umami cocktail. Mark couldn’t put his finger on it either, suggesting a familiar, comforting if common taste – perhaps the sauce invoked lost childhood memories… such was its powers then. The frites are prepped on location, they were crispy and golden and it had brought back memories of meals in Paris.

Few places in town will afford you a full meal for twenty pounds, and you would be wrong to assume the two servings of entrecote would do so. Plenty of chips were offered, but I found the eight slices of meat wanting. You know what, this is gourmet fast food. There is an equivalent chain of American restaurants – Lawry’s – which offer a similar concept, though at a steeper premium and in a slightly pompous setting. A caesar salad ‘spun in a large bowl’ by the waitress, followed by large chunks of rib roast sliced by a uniformed chef embellished with a large medallion around his neck to emphasise his carving skills. Both are executed by the table, theatrical and comical, I’ve been twice. But Le Relais de Venise is French and rigidity is their stamp of authenticity. So paper table coverings would be a symbol for romanticism, one could expect Sur les quais du vieux Paris to play in the background and the bite-sized portions would be a foregone conclusion in the presence of pleasurable company. There are fortunately better restaurants that serve much better steaks, but probably not with the same mystique as a L’Entrecote or with such a slender bottomline. And if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on more frites soaked in the mystery sauce again. A slice of Paris.

The Gist of It

Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote £22 for steak, frites, salad and service.
Official Site
120 Marylebone Lane W1U 2QG
Tube: Bond Street
Tel : +44 (0)20 7486 0878

Links Galore :
Graham Cooper’s take on the original Porte Maillot restaurant.
The New Yorker’s take on the midtown branch
BahrainPoise.com covering the Bahrain version of L’entrocote.

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I have vivid childhood memories of tagging along to the supermarket with my mum and her methods of judging if a piece of meat was fresh or whether it had gone off, she would always sniff the meat – if it smells good, it can’t be bad. Growing up in Brunei, everybody has a passion for beef, so much so that the government owns a cattle farm in Northern Australia, over 2000 square miles and just a shy larger the country itself – completely dedicated satisfying the appetite of a nation. Ironically enough, quantity doesnt equate quality as the produce is of largely forgettable quality; so bad that I would say it’s some of the worst beef I’ve ever eaten. Local supermarkets would use red tinted fluorescents to light the glass counters so as to make the beef look more appealing. My mum would always hold it up against white light, and she almost always opts for the tenderloin and nothing else because that was the only cut of beef tender enough not to turn into a rubber tyre after searing. This meant that all beef had to be tenderised before cooking. My mum started out with powdered tenderisers, though it soften the meat, it gave it a horrible plastic taste. Later on, she switched to a more ‘direct’ approach to tenderising with a studded steel hammer designed to pound the life out of the meat. Her speciality were seared black pepper tenderloin steak sandwiches. I liked mine with white bread and just a dash of Heinz… those were the days. Beef import choices weren’t always limited to the government owned ranch and back in the colonial days (Eighties), supermarkets stocked air flown Prime USDA beef, and even scotch beef, but that was a long time ago. In the ensuing years, my family’s quest for the bovine would be supplemented by regular trips around the globe and unsurprisingly, we would seek out the best grills in town to satiate our ever growing appetite.

Today I still carry the torch to continue my dad’s legacy of searching out for the best beefy things around. Cattle of one form or another has been consumed since the stone age and several methods of cooking has evolved over the centuries ranging from just eating it raw to slow stewing. I count myself fortunate to have tried many variations including recently conquering a fine piece of Biltong which my colleague brought back from his trip home to Jo’burg. Some recipes I’d like to try out include a carpetbag steak – an interesting one – which is basically a steak stuffed with fresh oysters. Something which doesn’t sound as appealing, but equally intriguing is a restructured steak: basically, an inexpensive steak formed by binding together small chunks of low-quality meat to create something which taste more expensive … artificial.

A discussion about beef has to include abit of blurb about the major breeds. Various sources suggest that there are anywhere between 250 to 800 recognised breeds across the globe which largely fall into two categories. Bos indicus are adapted to hot weather; Bos taurus for cooler climates. The cattle site is an excellent resource which describes the different known beef breeds in further detail, in addition to in depth and albeit scientific articles regarding the cutting edge of cattle breeding. Among the more popular breeds in today’s kitchens are the Black Angus and the Wagyu breed which in recent decades has gained in significant popularity due to it’s signature marbling and natural flavour.

One area of beef which I continue to find fascination with are the cuts. As I understand it, the entire carcass is first divided into the primal cuts, before being diced into derivative bits. Depending on which country it is, primal cuts vary slightly but let’s use this butcher’s chart prepared by the American Angus Association as a go by:

• Chuck – Is the meat cut from the upper chest of the animal. Otherwise sold as braising steak in the UK, it is usually used for in stews or slow cooking.
• Brisket – This is cut from the lower breast of the animal, immediately below the chuck. It is usually a tougher cut and so is often used in slow cooked recipes. Brisket is also used to make salt beef.
• Shank – The beef shank is lean and tough, it is after all what the animal exercises most. It is rarely sold due to its size and difficulty in cooking it. Though if you find one, it is usually one of the cheapest cuts and the bones would make great stocks.
• Short Plate and Flank – This belly bit of the animal produces the Bavette – a relatively tough cut of meat, and is usually roasted and cooked to rare or medium rare. When a kitchen can get the tenderness right, this cut of meat has great flavour.
• Rib – This particular part of the animal is probably the most prized. Situated at the top of animal, it is the least exercised part of the animal, and is also where the supposed prince of steaks – the rib eye is cut from. Rib eyes are prized for their marbling which produces a wonderful balance of tenderness and flavour. This is personally my favourite cut of meat, particular a bone-in ribeye – the bones and fat are where all the flavour lies…
• Short Loin – This section produces the most tender cut of beef : The tenderloin. However it’s tenderness comes from the fact that it is the least exercised muscle, however it is a relatively lean meat, and so is usually quite bland in comparison to say the ribeye. There are two other famous steaks which are cut from this section too : The porterhouse and the t-bone. Both steaks basically have two distinct cuts of steak held together with a bone in the centre. Both steaks have one side made up with the sirloin, and the other side with a fillet. The Porterhouse is differentiated by the relatively larger cut of tenderloin when compared to the T-bone.
• Sirloin – This cut is easily recognised by it’s layer of fat across the outside of the meat. Sometimes known as the New York Strip, it is one of the most popular steak choices, since it has a good balance of flavour and tenderness. Some prefer it to the ribeye because it is a leaner meat, with the top layer of fat providing the flavour… but not me.
• Round – Finally the cow’s bottom, is where you will find the round or rump steak. Tougher than the more expensive loin or rib cuts, but when prepared correctly can be extremely satisfying for its great flavour. If memory serves me right, the rump is particularly popular in Germany.

Oh there is one more cut that is gaining much popularity these days and that is the hanger steak. It is located in the flank area and is close to the kidneys. This gives way to an interesting string-like toughness but most of all, it imparts wonderfully rich and liver-like flavours. It’s wildly different to any of the conventional cuts and is sometimes known as the onglet or the butcher’s fillet – as the legend goes that butchers would not sell these and traditionally save this cut back from themselves. Must be had rare to medium rare due to its relatively toughness.

Which brings me to talk about the degree of cooking which ranges from raw, blue, rare, medium-rare, medium, medium-well to burnt like toast. Personally, I like my steaks still bloody and prefer medium rare because it preserves juices, flavour and maintains the natural tenderness of the meat… with just enough of the inherent fat melted into the meat to ooze flavour… ooh… in terms of figuring out how cooked a steak is, the rule of thumb is pretty accurate by simply comparing it to the tender bits on your face : chin – rare ; tip of nose – medium ; forehead – overcooked.

So far, I have had tried most of the popular breeds from their respective countries. This includes Prime USDA, French Charolais, Scotch Angus, English Casterbridge, Welsh Black and Australian Wagyu. Everything in that list, apart from the American classification was eaten in their native country. To me, a perfect steak is a combination of an expert griller and also a high quality of meat. I place more importance to the latter than the former. I look for wonderful marbling which usually translates to flavour and tenderness. If we use the ribeye as a point of reference, then the most tender steaks I have tried thus far are Prime USDA ribeyes. They just have a buttery texture that simply disintegrates in the mouth. French Charolais, in opinion are tougher than their international counterparts and are best eaten very pink. In terms of flavour, I like Scotch Angus ribeyes which some say is due to the grass they are fed on in Scotland. But the best steaks I have ever eaten surely have be the wagyus in Sydney. 450g of pure bovine bliss, I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, but I do remember that it overlooked Bondi beach. There is just a wonderful balance of rich flavour and chunky tenderness.

One particular type of breed that continues to elude my voracious appetitie are what I believe to be the true King of steaks : Kobe beef. Bred in Kobe, Japan, this was the original location of the vaunted Wagyu cattle, before breeding began in elsewhere in America and Australia. The ‘new world’ pretenders does not seem to replicate the original Kobe steaks in terms of truly ridiculous marbling. Unusually high in unsaturasted fat, as a point of reference, while the most expensive cut of prime USDA is graded at 6 on a marbling scale of 1-12, Kobe beef tends to be graded at 12 (Source: Wisegeek) , giving way to sensations incomparable with any other beef (including wagyu breeds but raised elsewhere). Of course, nobody really knows how or what the Japanese feed their wagyu cattle on, some say their coats are brushed with sake, others claim they make the cows listen to classical music, while most will claim that the cows are simply drunk all the time from excessive beer bingeing. A Kobe steak is distinctive in the way it looks; it is more white with red speckles of muscle instead of the other way around. Take a look at a picture of the meat here.

Of course just when I thought I had my eye on the real target, I stumble across another variant of the Wagyu known as the Matsusaka. Sometimes affectionately referred to as ‘Art of Meat’, the cattle are raised in Matsusaka in Japan and are rumoured to be even richer in marbling and flavour and supposedly better than the best of Kobe beef. There is alot of mystery behind the cutting edge of Japanese cattle breeding, exactly how they do it, nobody really knows. There is a concise history which you can reference here if you’d like to know more. Anyway, the most prized Matsusaka cows have apparently sold at auction houses for six figure sums. Take a look at a picture of raw matsusaka.. look at the marbling on that badboy! Anyway, as far as I know, Kobe or Matsusaka beef can only be eaten in Japan. Japan is on my vacation list this year, so I will report back to you know once I come back.

Steaks are a personal journey for me, from a childhood of watching my mum pound fillet steaks to a pulp to sampling beautifully aged porterhouse cuts, my mum is still sometimes amazed that there are some steaks which need no tenderising. Anyway, after this love-letter to steaks, I will need to recharge the protein batteries. If you’d like to do the same and you live in London then there are only four names you need to know : Goodman, Hawksmoor, Jack O Shea and The Ginger Pig.

PS : I would love to hear your stories about your favourite steaks and some tips and recommendations too, so feel free to leave your mark in the comments section folks.

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