Top 5 chophouses

Get your chops around this, erm, chop...
10 April 2012

If you've had enough of the detox and fancy a gut-busting dinner or two why not have a meaty plate at one of London's chophouses?

Fay Maschler

The Quality Chop House 92-94 Farringdon Road, EC1 (020-7837 5093). Mon-Sun (dinner only on Sat) £76

When you revisit a restaurant after quite a long gap the prices can surprise you, either nicely or horribly. It was definitely the former at this 'Progressive Working Class Caterer' where ex-Le Caprice chef Charles Fontaine has devised a robust menu with something for everybody.

The Caviar, Jellied Eels, Quality and Civility emblazoned at the top of the page were all present and correct but we actually ate six fat snails in garlic butter for £4.75, Cornish crab salad with mayonnaise for £7.95, grilled Toulouse sausages with mashed potato and onion gravy for £9.50 and four grilled lamb chops with chips and grilled tomatoes for £15.50.

Another dish that justifies the Chop House label is the grilled 28-day matured Scottish beef chop with chips for £15.95. The wooden pews are unforgiving but any discomfort can be forgotten with another bottle from the eminently reasonable wine list.

Rib Room & Oyster Bar Hyatt Carlton Tower Hotel, Cadogan Place, SW1 (020-7858 7053). Mon-Sun £120

I infer from the Zagat Guide that Americans use the word chophouse to signify a place that serves roast beef, steaks and other grills. If you are eating on expenses, or if a rich Yank is picking up the bill, then enjoy the magnificent rib roasts served from the trolley.

The Aberdeen Angus beef is hung to the chef's specifications which means that ordering any one of the steaks is also a sound decision. Accompaniments and accoutrements are all properly produced.

A rotisserie spins a good duck and the crustacea bar can supply oysters, lobster, crab and prawns and the cheese trolley an array that guarantees a cholesterol count of which you can be proud.

The style of service is what you would expect from a hotel restaurant. The atmosphere echoes James Brown's observation that 'This is a man's, man's, man's world...'.

Malmaison Brasserie 18-21 Charterhouse Square, EC1 (020-7012 3700). Mon-Sun £86

The small Malmaison hotel group has recently opened an establishment in Charterhouse Square, a location that would gratify any visitor who came to London misty-eyed after reading Dickens or maybe Peter Ackroyd.

The conversion of the building is a stylish one and the Brasserie in the basement is cleverly disposed, giving pools of privacy at different levels and a feeling of being safely encased in old walls whose ears have heard a lot.

The menu section entitled From The Grill includes a mixed grill (£16.95) which seems to me to qualify the restaurant as a chophouse. The recipient of lamb cutlet, rump steak, pork sausage, veal kidney and a fried quail's egg complained that without liver it couldn't really be called a mixed grill.

Other dishes tried, such as a daily special called panaché of fish, makes me advise sticking to the plain food, eg a mixed grill.

Brian Turner Mayfair Millennium Mayfair Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1 (020-7596 3444). Mon-Sun £90

After a cooking career in French food, our Brian, born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, has returned to his roots in this eponymous hotel dining room.

Barnsley chop, a cut across a saddle of lamb producing twin chops joined by the backbone, is featured on the menu and jolly good it is too - too good to need Reform sauce, an application created in the days when the quality of meat could be dicey. Steak-and-kidney plate pie is another staunch dish well executed.

Efforts to reflect modern ideas about eating, such as black pudding spring rolls and avocado with horseradish hummus, should be ignored in favour of traditional items. Patriotism demands that the Yorkshire pudding should rise spectacularly and so it does, complimenting the fine rib of Aberdeen Angus beef. Turner does a good job as jocular host.

Fox & Anchor 115 Charterhouse Street, EC1 (020-7253 5075). Mon-Fri (breakfast & lunch only) £52

Looking at the postal codes on this page, you realise the influence of Smithfield meat market on the restaurants around. This pub serves the butchers and pitchers (the men who unload the trucks) beer and a hearty breakfast from 7am to 2pm.

If you are not an inside trader, it is wise to mention when booking that you would like the mixed grill which includes sausage, kidneys, steak, liver, black pudding, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and chips. With a full English breakfast, which corrals the usual suspects, come baked beans and fried bread. With a start to the day like this, plus a couple of pints of Guinness, you can last unfuelled until suppertime. A similar deal is available at the nearby sweetly named Hope & Sir Loin, 94 Cowcross Street, EC1 (020-7253 8525). Note, both are useful after a night on the tiles.

Prices indicate the average cost of a meal for two with wine

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