It was off to South Kensington and Janet’s bar, which proved quite difficult to find. Luckily for me while searching for the pre-drinks venue I thankfully bumped into Andre who saved me a lot of hassle and informed me that the venue had changed. It was a good thing Gary and Brad took the executive decision to shift venues from all accounts as Janet’s sounded quite extortionate and unwelcoming.
Brad had guessed that we were heading to an Italian restaurant down the road, which had us all skeptical about Wassies choice for the night. We needn’t have worried as on arrival at Macellaio we passed a very impressive window display of hanging meat and then the butchers counter displaying a wide array of meat and other choice off-cuts. This is no ordinary Italian restaurant but rather an ‘Italian butchery with tables’. The restaurant itself is a typical low key, relaxed, friendly Italian affair with a front and rear seating area. We were ushered to our table in the rear and each presented with our newspaper menu.
The menu was really interesting and nothing we had come across before as it was designed as a newspaper with the front page covering all the details about the steak on offer from the breed of cow and its origin (all from the North of Italy) to the ageing, cuts and cooking methods. The menu followed across the rest of the pages with the large almost A3 size pages covered from top to bottom with choices. The steak section had a couple choices with prices quoted per kilo as steaks were cut to your size of choice.
After discussing the cuts with the waitress we decided to go for her recommendation and ordered 1.5kgs of the beef rib and a kilo cut of the T-bone, both medium rare. An interesting point to note is that your meat is brought to the table before cooking for inspection, which sure whets the appetite and gets the stomach juices flowing. Another interesting touch is that when the cutlery is brought to the table the knives are “stabbed” into the table, something that can catch you off guard as the waitress raises her knife wielding had before ramming it into the table in front of you! The steaks looked impressive on arrival and we needed no invitation to get stuck in. With the cuts being so big and thick there is always going to be some variability with some slices a bit more rare and others a bit more well done. This was certainly the case with my cuts and I also found that the flavor was certainly enhanced with a few cracks of salt. The beef rib had a fair bit of marbling which made it quite tough however the fillet and sirloin of the T-bone were both very good.
Our service for the night was very good with our waitress being very knowledgeable, attentive and obliging, arranging a visit from the owner and a complimentary round of limoncello’s at the end of the meal so we couldn’t have asked for more.
Our two wines for the evening were both very good. The first was a Focara Pinot Noir 2012, which was a full bodied and fruity in flavor, maybe more suited as our second bottle to enjoy with the steak. The second bottle was a Ronco Del Picchio – Sforzato di Valtellina Fay 2009 a very nice, much smoother wine however I didn’t think it was worth £79.
Our night out was on average at £70/head however this included two bottles of wine that were way more expensive than usual. The steak was good value with the beef rib and t-bones ranging from £52/kg to £56/kg and the Fillet at an expected more expensive £80/kg. We did get a complimentary round of Limocello’s, which was a nice touch.
All in all a brave but very good choice by Wassie and one I’ll certainly visit again and recommend to others.
Steak – 6.5 X 5 = 32.5
Venue – 8
Menu – 8
Wine – 7
Waitress – 9
Value – 6.5
Total = 71