London restaurants

Boisdale, Mayfair – Lovely Steak

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Last Saturday for lunch, Ms  B & I decided it was time for a juicy steak, so we walked the short distance over to Boisdale Mayfair, next to Marble Arch. Ms B, or voucher-chick, as her schoolfriends used to call her back in the day, had found a 50% off deal on Open Table. She had already visited the Boisdale Canary Wharf a few months ago with work colleagues and highly recommended the steaks (I had previously only been there for drinks). There are two more branches, one in Bishopsgate and one in Belgravia. Boisdale is the brainchild of self-styled enfant terrible Ranald Macdonald  , a man admiringly described by Tatler, the pompously posh periodical or manicured millionaires’ magazine, as “the most politically incorrect restaurateur in Britain.” The younger of Clanranald and eldest son of the 24th chief and captain of Clanranald, Macdonald’s background sounds as if he spends his […]

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London restaurants

M Grill Victoria

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One of my major client contracts in my day job as regulatory consultant had just been extended for another year a few days ago after 6 weeks of relative limbo and just a few days’ work here and there. So Ms B & I decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal at M Victoria’s Grill, or “M Grill.” We had visited (and blogged about) it before, so we knew that we’d enjoy it. Former thespian and current CEO of M Restaurant London, Martin Williams, founded the group in November 2014 with the opening of the first M restaurant in Threadneedle Street (followed by M Victoria in December 2015 and shortly after by M Twickenham), after having been Gaucho’s Managing Director for nine years. (He has just returned as part-time advisor to Gaucho besides his day job at M to help save the embattled steakhouse chain that has recently been […]

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London restaurants

New Street Grill, London – Great steaks.. but..

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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 […]

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Frankfurt restaurants, Germany

Senckenbergs, Frankfurt – our Restaurant Review

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I’m just back from dinner at Senckenbergs, a steak house and restaurant in Frankfurt’s Bockenheim neighbourhood. The atmosphere is more on the modern, slightly quirky, designer-elegant end of the scale, but not overly so, with the lights spreading a lovely, warm atmosphere. Service was great from the moment I entered the door. Very friendly, helpful, entertaining, even though maybe not always 100% well-versed with the usual etiquette at the pricier end of the market. After short deliberation I opted for blood sausage with lamb’s lettuce, beetroot, and potato dressing (€10.50), a Rib Eye (€34 for 300g plus €11 for every additional 100g, in my case roughly €40 for the steak, it turned out) with herb jus (€2), a side of sautéed spinach (€4), and no dessert. The Rioja (0.2l) for €9.20 did not overly excite me. The starter mainly surprised by the nearly complete absence of blood sausage. Having been […]

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Frankfurt restaurants, Germany

Block House, West End, Frankfurt

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UPDATE 31.03.2019: I spent a lot of time in Frankfurt recently, staying at a hotel within 5mins walking distance from another Block House. As I’m also currently trying to move towards a keto diet, I ate at Block House about one dozen times over the past few months. Presuming the quality of Frankfurt Block Houses is similar to each other, I upgrade my rating from 2.5 to 3 out of 5. Half the time the steak was prepared extremely well (due to the fact that the meat was decent quality, but nothing special, the overall taste was just good, not special), 40% of the time it was slightly above average. 10% of the time it was slightly below average. You can watch the people in the kitchen prepare the food, and there were clear visible differences between the preparation of good steaks and average steaks. The good steaks all involved […]

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