Gillray's Steakhouse & Bar - review

Your major beef will be the meat...
16 April 2013

A seat in Gillray’s Bar would be just the ticket on the afternoon of Sunday June 3 when Her Majesty the Queen, travelling in the royal barge, heads the flotilla of boats taking part in the Diamond Jubilee pageant. But on any night the view of the Thames, the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben is a tourist board wet dream. And isn’t that Ken Livingstone downing a Great Chamber cocktail based on Bramley and Gage sloe gin over in the corner? No, that’s a topical jape based on the fact that this space was once part of the GLC when Ken was its leader in the Eighties.

The curvaceous wood-panelled, presumably listed, restaurant interior brings to life the phrase “corridors of power” but provides an awkwardly narrow layout, with windows onto the London Eye but only a glimpse of the river. It occurs to me and my guests — two generous chaps in the design business who bid to eat out with me in an auction in aid of Unicef — that the bar and restaurant should swap places. But this is a hotel and maybe not enough covers for breakfast (being busily laid up towards the end of our dinner) could be supplied in the bar area.

Being a hotel also means the restaurant has a theme and a mission statement. The first is the 18th-century social and political caricaturist James Gillray. Reproductions of his characters appear on decorative panels and the titles of some of his classic images are used as names for cocktails — The Morning After Marriage, and Fashionable Contrasts. A notable omission is Monstrous Craws at a New Coalition Feast. Some of these “experiential” drinks using “the latest mixology trends” have as a starting point the 39 English gins available, a munificence that makes Hogarth seem the appropriate chap for a theme.

The mission, apparently, is to create “London’s best steakhouse” using meat from cattle reared on the Duke of Devonshire’s Bolton Abbey Estate. Hawksmoor, Goodman, Cut, Mark Hix Oyster & Chop House, Guinea Grill, Maze Grill, Smith’s Top Floor — you can all relax. A themed hotel restaurant is foolish to engage in such a competition even with the somewhat grotesque offer of “Bull’s head”, a kilo of steak for £48. One of those and you could model for a recreation of Gillray’s A Voluptuary Under The Horrors of Digestion or The Gout.

A surprising, but arguably patriotic, start to the meal was Yorkshire puddings and horseradish sauce served in place of bread. The explosions of batter were vaguely cheesy, quite agreeable but an odd prelude to anything other than roast beef.

We started with prawn cocktail at a hefty £12, warm chicken liver parfait that would have been better colder and firmer, corned beef and bacon hash with fried quail’s egg and Surrey duck egg salad. “Gastropub food,” said one of our party and although there is a chef at Gillray’s — Gareth Bowen is his name — there was a feeling of items being provided by a central source of supply. Main courses are divided into Steaks and The Others.

Rib-eye (260g) and D-rump (300g) at £28 and £20 respectively plus £3 for Carroll’s Heritage chips and £4 each for side dishes of creamed spinach and peas, broad beans and bacon were outshone by veal cutlet with chanterelle and sorrell [sic] cream from The Others for £24. It was an assembly a good deal more soigné than the steaks, particularly the extremely muscular D-rump. Gillray’s steak burger seemed fashioned from offcuts and had none of the cushiony quality that a burger should possess.

Chef offers a spirited selection of ice creams and sorbets but traditional sherry trifle at £9.50 served in a jam jar on a board — please no more preserving jars, no more boards — was a travesty of this historic confection. “Stiff, tight and pippy,” said one of my otherwise charitable companions.

Staff are enthusiastic. Hearing an Eastern European waitress wax lyrical about “our English cheeses” (displayed under bell jars on the bar) was somehow rather touching. It is probably feasible to ask for cheese in the bar, where snacks include Melton Mowbray pork pie, pigs in blankets, salt beef, Gillray’s club sandwich — and that nutritious view.

London Marriott Hotel County Hall, Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 (020 7928 5200). Open daily 6.30am-10.30pm (7am Sat & Sun). A meal for two with wine, about £150 including 12.5 per cent service.

Five things Fay ate this week

1. More canapés than usual because The Ledbury supplied them for David Cameron’s reception for chefs and other food groupies at 10 Downing Street.

2. With my good friend and IT consultant Joe Warwick, who was feeling the worse for wear after The World’s 50 Best Restaurants bash, burnt-chilli Indo-Chinese-stir-fried chicken, Bangla-Scotch (quail) eggs and haleem with saffron pau at Cinnamon Soho.

3. Good but ridiculously expensive dumplings and other dishes at Bright Courtyard in Baker Street with my son Ben who, having moved from London to Wiltshire, pines for Chinese food.

4. At The Pig, a wholly engaging hotel in the New Forest, whole roasted pork belly with apple sauce and pickled ox-eye daisy buds with “Walled Garden” salad.

5. On Sunday I made Lucas Hollweg’s recipe for dal with its brilliant notion of including Puy lentils and served it with mustard and honey-glazed quails.

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