OK, so I seem to have a lot of 'don't's' concerning eating out in London - one of them is avoiding tourist traps such as Leicester Square.
However I was proven wrong on this occasion. After a trip to the pop-up bar, Roofnic (an amalgamation of 'roof' and 'picnic' which is, actually, just a rooftop bar) on Oxford Street, we all fancied some steak. We narrowed it down to two places, and we simply decided to go to the one closest to our location, so off we trotted to Flat Iron in Soho, which consisted of a two hour wait, so we swiftly turned back out the door, and onto our next closest destination which was
Steak & Co.
My friend had given us a glowing review of the place, which seemed very interesting, I was just slightly concerned we were heading towards Leciester Square on a Friday evening. However, I shouldn't have been.
Even though the majority of tables were with diners, we were seated straight away. The menu was reminiscent of one you would see at Angus Steakhouses which was slightly alarming, but if you just focus on the steak section, you'll be fine. Choose your pick of any steak, weight, as well as your choice of seasoning, butter AND sauce. This may not be the best place to take the indecisive, but it's a fun place to go to if you want something a bit different.
Each steak comes on a hot stone plate, my sirloin steak was sizzling to the point I was choking slightly on the smoke, but it was well worth it. The smell is divine (although likely to get your hair smelling of smoke too). The method is to slice your steak, put a bit of your chosen flavoured butter on the stone, infuse the sliced steak with the butter, season, and maybe dunk into your chosen sauce for good measure.
The novelty didn't wear off surprisingly, though I did find I didn't need the butter AND sauce, and then once the butter starts melting in your pot, it gets a bit messy and fiddly.
Having said that, the meat was of good quality, if I knew what I was really ordering, I probably would have asked for my meat rare, rather than medium as it obviously cooks pretty quickly once you replace it on the stone.
I went for the sirloin steak with whole grain mustard butter, seaweed salt and red wine sauce. I prefer quite a strong mustard taste which I didn't find with this butter, the seaweed salt was just for fun really - seaweed doesn't taste of much when there's so little of it. I probably could have done without the red wine sauce, which I used mainly to dunk my chips into, it probably overpowered the other two combinations - but then I have no one else to blame but myself. The chips are lovely though - they tasted fresh.
I would go here again - it's a fun place to take friends and family. It might not be the steaks of all steakhouses but the concept is brilliant and the food is pretty good depending on your own personal choices of flavour. It's reasonably priced for steak and Central London. And for a place in the heart of tourists, it is probably a bit more understated and not overflowing with people, so it gets my vote.
RATING: 3.5 out of 5
