Review at a glance: ★★★★☆
The truth of the past and the stories told of it often differ. Sir Terence Conran is regularly credited with having revolutionised a dreary London restaurant scene into something so glitzy it seemed as if every waitress was a showgirl and the coke was cut with glitter. And while true, as a story of London becoming a decent place to dine, it does elbow out all the others who held up their end — Rowley Leigh, Alastair Little, Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers. Marco. The lesser-spotted Worrall Thompson.
The Conran Collection became D&D, and is now Evolv. One E. It has a new CEO in Martin Williams, ex-Gaucho and M Restaurants, and Williams wants to recapture the old days. Bring back the glamour, haul up the standards, cut the dead weight. Going to a Conran restaurant used to really mean something. It will again, he says.
The newly opened Liverpool Street Chop House and Tavern is his statement of intent. It replaces a forgotten D&D site, the New Street Grill, but he hasn’t pointlessly torn everything out and started over. Same floor, same bar, a handful of the old light fittings. Aesthetically, the differences come down to new cutlery and crockery — modern Spode riffs; blue and white rural scenes — and fresh tablecloths, artwork, logos. The bones of the 1768-built warehouse remain beautiful. Call it an injection of Botox, not a facelift.
Food is where the money’s gone. Menus are brand new, and eminently easy to follow — nothing where what sounds like a cream for athlete’s foot turns out to be a fashionable cheese. This is a restaurant of bone marrow crumpets, Welsh rarebit fries, of steaks and lamb chops, suet puddings and whole pig heads. I could eat it all. A restaurant for smart dates and overdue catch-ups; but also, I suspect, of a few afternoons that descend happily into fogginess. Not much for veggies, true, but come on. You don’t go to a Chop House expecting a decent line in couscous.
The instinct is to do the classics: martinis with oysters, a couple of starters, steak and big boy Burgundies. It is a formula not easily resisted when executed as it is here, egged on by willing staff. This is a room in which the sense of a good meal might be measured by the din of furious chatter and pealing laughter.
It needn’t come at horrendous cost. Every pint is £5 (including Guinness) with wine from £35 a bottle (there’s also plenty for the expense accounts). Oysters are a fiver, whether served simply with lemon and shallot vinegar or battered and smothered with heartily smoked potato aioli. For £9 comes a very fine, buttery pea “soope” made to a recipe from 1669 (when peas, I kid you not, were a bit of a craze). The butter note does not cloud its freshness. A neatly sliced, devilled lamb’s liver skewer is £12; ours should have left the grill earlier but, with the devilling slight, the subtle offal tang of the liver emerged, that satisfying ferrous flavour not drowned in Worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper. A dab of Colman’s could bring such heat back if desired.
The fillet was a pile of silk and velvet
Steak is presented on a trolley, an idea that needs a little tweaking to keep the meat looking at its best throughout service. But it does let the waiters talk about The Ethical Butcher, where they source the meat, and about regenerative farming, about Hereford/Angus crosses, and all of that. Steak nerds will delight. They might even like when a choice of knives is offered, though I don’t get the gimmick (is a prize in one of the handles? Is one really a spoon?).
Our quibbles were silenced once the steaks arrived with crisp beef fat chips and model creamed leeks, and expert Béarnaise and similarly good green peppercorn sauce. Both the 7oz fillet (£39) and the 35oz bone-in ribeye (£150; usually to share) were as comforting and perfect as false memories of first love. The fillet was a pile of silk and velvet, the ribeye a carnivorous gentle giant of rendered fat, earthy as though it had not come from a cow but instead had been mined. Which of London’s steaks is best is not clear, but the Chop House could lay a claim. Williams has chosen not to reinvent the wheel, but true to that dreadful name, his group has evolved. Sorry, evolvd.
Devonshire Square, 16 New Street, EC2M 4TR. Meal for two about £150; liverpoolstchophouse.co.uk
