Review at a glance: ★★☆☆☆
My most forgiving friends are, for that reason, my most cherished. When I was 19 I visited one who was living in Bordeaux. We queued an hour for L’Entrecôte, which I remember for its tartan wallpaper and mummified waitresses, who hurried about in school bus yellow T-shirts that matched the tablecloths, as though the same material had been used for both. And I remember the steak, drenched in a “secret” sauce. This, plus a salad and three hastily glugged wines, came to about €15. I swore to come back.
Like most things I promised myself at 19 — a life of stardom and riches, that we’d all be friends forever, that my father would get better — it did not come true. That’s the thing with being 19; you know it all until you don’t. But luckily with L’Entrecôte, there are barely distinguishable variations of it dotted across the world. Soho used to have one that I went to once or twice after drinking in the French. This was Le Relais De Venise; L’Entrecôte is run by its cousins. Why dilute the brand? Because families argue.
It is closed now. But its Marylebone sister might never. It’s a contender for London’s most popular restaurant. Queues run into its courtyard, unfurling like a clock spring. There’s even a pair of security guards, which is impressive for a place without karaoke or celebs.
Its appeal is simple and world-famous: a walnut salad, followed by slices of ribeye steak and frites for £33, and wine from a fiver a glass. Restaurateurs with empty dining rooms like to complain there are no customers left. Maybe. Or maybe they’re getting their offer wrong.
Tourists adore it: the queue is probably more use than Duolingo. A nearby spot has a takeaway hatch serving drinks to those waiting, which I imagine makes it more money than the diners inside. And impatient sorts, given up praying for hurricanes, leave and dive into nearby restaurants. Relais is at the centre of its own honeypot economy.
Inside it is a restaurant built primarily on brass and varnish. Beneath lampshades with gondoliers on are fake plastic candlesticks. There are great — in the sense of size, I cannot stress that enough — murals of Venice on the walls. It is an upmarket restaurant as imagined in children’s books.
Children’s books read under the covers with a torch, that is. It is abominably bright. And so mistakes are not cloaked in shadow. You see every napkin trod into the floor, every scuffed sign, every crack in the tabletops. The wonky candelabras, the stains on the seats. There are butter knives served with the steaks and orders are written on the paper napkins. And there are so many chips on the floor it feels like a McDonald’s operating out of an abandoned Disneyland bistro.
Staff are excellent. The problem is that the number of them on deck versus the number required might best be compared to lifeboats and the Titanic. As such, friendly service is patchy; food arrives quickly but drinks take an age. Brave is the couple who orders a bottle of wine. Brave, or perhaps in need of a weekly meeting with no surnames.
There are so many chips on the floor it feels like a McDonald’s
The walnut salad had leaves browning and drooping, though its mustard dressing was delicious, but then I do have a mustard problem. But it is so slight as to be basically free; you are not, then, paying £33 for a starter and main, but £33 for steak. Not such a bargain. Another serving of meat is slapped down, but it feels more like a case of the second half following the first rather than two portions. The meat itself, ladled from silver trays kept warm with tea candles, was tender and well cooked.
The “secret” sauce? Revealing it is not like killing Father Christmas: countless before me have said it is Café de Paris (butter, mustard, shallots, herbs, Worcestershire sauce, anchovies). But what I remember as thick and buttery was here watery, scrawny. The crème brûlée, though? Truly excellent.
Why did I go? I was headed to France but couldn’t detour to Bordeaux. I suppose I wanted to feel 19 again. But nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. I’d tell you who said that first, but I’ve forgotten. Some things are best left that way.
120 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2QG. Meal for two about £120; relaisdevenise.com
