We enjoyed the steaks at our recent visit to New Street Grill. It is located in a small alleyway just off Liverpool Street Station. Staff seemed a bit distracted and hectic from the beginning to the end, with several different waiters taking turns at our table. But we were mainly in for a quick good fill of good value steak on a school day evening, not for tittle-tattle or excellence in hospitality, so no complaints.
The atmosphere is masculine, dark, with a lot of wood, leather, steel, possibly more appealing to me than to Ms B. Both of us liked the atmosphere, especially that there was a lot of space, everything looked modern, pleasant, and colours are warm and relaxing.
We decided to opt for the rather reasonably priced two-course set menu, which comes in at £25 per person, including a small glass of wine, each.
We were both starving, so ordered as soon as we had been seated: courgette and watercress soup with sour cream and salmon tartare with pickled cucumber for starters, one fillet and one hanger steak, each with potato dauphinoise, as mains. To go with the steaks, we ordered bernaise and peppercorn sauce (each £2.50). To top it all off, we went for lobster mac’n’cheese (£8.50) and sweet potato fries (£4.50) as additional sides.
The starters arrived after 20 minutes. Both dishes tasted ok, nothing out of the ordinary and perhaps a bit bland and uninspired.
The mains then took a long time to arrive, at least another 40 minutes after we had finished our starters. We think it might have had to do with the large number of different staff sharing responsibility for us. Well, can’t win all the time, and at least the lobster mac’n’cheese arrived 20 minutes into the wait, ensuring that there were no casualties (as in us dying of starvation, of course, not something else: the Barbarians are always very sweet to restaurant staff).
When the steaks finally arrived, we were very pleased. Both arrived medium, as ordered, and were prepared to perfection, truly delicious. We’ve had better, more expensive cuts at some other places, but these were certainly two very fine steaks. The potato dauphinoise would without any doubt have gone back to the kitchen, if we were with any of our French friends (all of whom are very particular about their food, and especially dauphinoise), but we were hungry and they tasted ok. Just not very much like potato dauphinoise, that’s all.
Overall, it wasn’t the perfect restaurant visit and we probably won’t be back. Fine steaks, though. 2.5 out of 5 from where we’re sitting, 4.5 out of 5 if this were only about the steak.
Looking for more reviews of places that know how to prepare a steak? Check out our posts on M Grill, Victoria, Cote Brasserie, Marylebone (for steak frites only), or Black Bulls in Frankfurt. Other restaurants we recently reviewed include Beso, London, The Porch House, Stow-on-the-Wold, and Michelin-starred Neptune in Hunstanton, Norfolk.
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