Those of you who like to keep up to date with what’s going on on the London restaurant scene might like to read my notes on three recent openings:
Maze Grill
Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants always kick off with a great lunch deal and Maze Grill, the steakhouse which now abuts his protegée Jason Atherton’s Maze is no exception. When I went a couple of months ago, shortly after opening you could have two courses, including a perfectly cooked steak for just over a tenner. Now it's £15 which still isn't bad.
They obviously make up for it with the à la carte on which there are many pricier options including wagyu beef at ‘market price’ (over £100 a kilo on the day I went there). These are brought round reverentially, wrapped in napkins by what I imagine will soon be dubbed a steak sommelier.
I picked from the à la carte and enjoyed a really elegant and tasty little asparagus salad with mushroom tapenade and the cheapest steak on the menu a Casterbridge grain fed onglet, aged 21 days which was stylishly served on a wooden board. To be honest my daughter’s steak from the fixed price menu was better, served with impeccable bearnaise and some great chips.
There’s a decent by the glass list and I enjoyed my New Zealand Pinot Noir, whose producer I carelessly failed to note.
On the debit side I wasn’t mad about the room which had that rather drab retro '70s decor that always reminds me of airport lounges. And an irritating ploy to generate extra income: when we arrived they told us our table wasn’t ready and suggested we had a drink from the bar while we waited. When we got into the restaurant half the tables were empty.
But the steaks are great and it’s a useful, central location for a pit-stop in the middle of an Oxford or Bond Street shopping trip.
Maze Grill is at 10 - 13 Grosvenor Square, London W1K 6JP. Tel: 020 7495 2211
Hix Oyster and Chop House
If there’s a more fashionable place to eat in London at the moment, I’m hard pushed to say what it is. Only its location - just off Charterhouse Street in Smithfield - stops it being even more heavily populated by the fashionistas.
The reason is that it’s run by everyone’s favourite chef Mark Hix, previously executive chef for the equally fashionable Ivy, Caprice, J. Sheekey and Scott’s, now out on his own.
The menu is classic Hix, simple, delicious, very English dishes from impeccably well-sourced ingredients, many with a clever twist that make them stand out from what his competitors are doing. I had a lovely, fresh spring-like salad of finely sliced raw asparagus, wood sorrel and crumbled Gorwydd Caerphilly and dipped into my neighbours equally tasty plate of deep-fried sand-eels with caper mayonnaise. I should have followed their example and had the spanking fresh grilled sole but was happy enough with some deep fried whiting and pea puree served with a great variation on bubble and squeak with added crushed peas. We drank an Assyrtiko from Santorini, a zesty seafood white, which happily accommodated all the dishes.
Two downsides. The service is slow and still slightly erratic which is annoying if you have an early afternoon meeting (which I did). And it’s incredibly hard to get in. Your best bet is to turn up from 1.30pm onwards and be willing to sit at the bar.
Hix Oyster and Chop House is at 36-37 Greenhill Rents, Cowcross Street, EC1; 020 7017 1930
Cha Cha Moon
The blue neon sign outside Cha Cha Moon, Alan Yau’s latest opening, suggests ultimate cool an impression cemented as you walk past the open glass-fronted kitchen. But the food doesn’t live up to the promise. This is essentially an upmarket Wagamama, slightly more authentic but no more consistent. Of the dishes we ordered only two were really satisfying, a tasty spin on Singapore noodles - the Singapore char kway teow which contained chinese salami and fish ‘cake’ and a really delicious side dish of stir-fried garlic chives. Wontons were heavy, roast duck noodles in soup tough and Seafood Ho fun (scallops and other seafood in black bean sauce) sweet and gloopy. At £3.50 a dish one can’t really complain but this is a better place to drop in for a single dish than have a meal.
Drinks were interesting though. Not the wine of which there are only three, rather weedy examples, but the non-alcoholic cocktails. I had a deliciously refreshing cucumber and apple juice and also tasted my companions Guava Collins (guava, coconut and lime leaf) and Wha Lulu (carrot, rosewater, ginger and orange), again well priced at £2.90. Worth going for those alone.
Cha Cha Moon is at 15-21 Ganton St, London W1F 9BN (just off Carnaby Street). No bookings.
