We should be eating less meat, not just for our personal health, but for that of the planet. Forgive the contrariness of kicking off a steak restaurant review with a glum piety, but please, bear with me. I’m not alone in refusing to renounce meat for ever, but those of us who are committed to the carnivorous life do need to do it differently. We should regard meat the way we do chocolate or booze or threesomes: not intrinsically wrong, but best not done to excess.
Have meat little and seldom and, when you do, make sure it’s the best you can lay your paws on. In the canon of fine beef, Piedmont’s fassone cattle are right up there. I’ve written about this remarkable meat before, when an earlier incarnation of this Genovese butcher (“macellaio”) opened in west London, about its extraordinary qualities, notably the ancient breed’s muscular hypertrophy: the “double muscling” rogue gene that makes it extraordinarily low in fat and cholesterol. That it also delivers a blast of purest beefy flavour is a glorious bonus. This time, the Macellaio boys are dedicating equal billing to tuna, the “steak of the sea”.
It’s rampant understatement to say that Macellaio RC (the “RC” is owner, Roberto Costa) has a striking frontage: formerly Exmouth Market’s Medcalf, its two windows draw the eye as efficiently as a streaker. In one, meat dangles on hooks like a scene from Saw, vast sides of fassone ageing into purple splendour; in the other, a vast, silvery tuna is gradually butchered. On the pavement in front, randomly, red leather chesterfields.
The windows aren’t just ghoulishly decorative: the meats are being dry-aged, the beef for 50 days, the tuna for seven, both in the name of richness and tenderising. The menu, like the restaurant itself, is split into two: one side beef, the other tuna, with preparations for both almost identical. Sometimes they meet, as in a dish of two carpaccios: in a successful twist, the tuna is served like tagliata with rocket and parmesan, the steak tonnato-style with anchovy- and tuna-laced mayo. It’s fascinating to compare: both deep red, hot-blooded and unmistakably meaty, but entirely other in texture and backtaste.
Macellaio RC also does a nice line in handsome staff given to supremely Italian preening and posturing. On my second visit, I get a kiss from lovely Eugenio (nothing to do, obviously, with my previous lunch having lasted for four hours). They love a bit of theatre: viciously sharp knives are stabbed into tables with a thud; meat is butchered loudly to order; steaks are delivered under metal cloches until – ta–da! It’s all deliciously butch-camp.
The place looks good in a scuffed, unstudied way: wine corks are scattered around (there’s a small-producer winelist featuring such recherché numbers as our luscious pecorino biologico), and many, many bottles and tins of the grassy, peppery Ligurian olive oil they splash about with generous abandon.
The steaks live up to the theatre, char-crusted and tender from ageing. Dressed simply with that oil and a sprinkle of sea salt, the sirloin – sold by the weight up to a vast 900g; the smallest, at 400g, easily feeds two of us – is the sort of thing to make you want to close your eyes and concentrate on the chew, your tastebuds flooding with sheer, joyful meatiness. We also try it topped somewhat randomly with pear and gorgonzola: unnecessary lily-gilding. The tuna we have dried, salted and bathed in golden yolk from a crisply fried egg, and with fat tubes of paccheri pasta served beautifully al dente and dressed in a ripe tomato and tuna sauce: essence of Italy.
Side dishes are adequate. Sicily’s beloved caponata is needlessly refined into a vaguely vinegary roasted vegetable hummock. Little roast potatoes are scented with rosemary and garlic, but are a touch pallid and lacklustre, as are cannellini beans with sage and not much butter; they’re also not hot enough. But there’s no way I can hold much against the place. That steak is the equal of all those Galician ex-dairy cattle and super-aged cider house txuletons, and it’s better for you. It might not have their almost rank cheesiness, but its clean, rich flavour delivers a wallop of beefy satisfaction. Macellaio is run with passion and charm, and serves almost magical meat. For my own little and seldom, here’s where you’ll find me.
• Macellaio RC 38-40 Exmouth Market, London EC1, 020-3696 8220. Open all week, noon-3pm, 6pm-midnight (noon-11pm Sat, noon-10pm Sun). About £35 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food 9/10 for the steaks, 6/10 for most of the rest
Atmosphere 7/10
Value for money 8/10
