jw steakhouse - grosvenor house

set within a 5 star hotel, jw steakhouse comes with 5 star pricing, thoughmeatlovers will attest that quality steak is worth paying for. all in all, i had an extremely pleasurable dining experience at jw steakhouse with a fun, yet mature atmosphere making it an ideal location for groups of friends or colleagues to enjoy world class food in a world renowned setting.

jw steakhouse burgers - a rip off. we went to jw steakhouse last night (9 of us) as part of our monthly burger club in london. it was the most disappointing, tasteless and dry burger we had so far and considering the £17 price tag this was borderline offensive. you can get something close to the best burger in the universe for £15 at goodmans or hawksmoore or even cheaper atmeatliquor. themeathad nothing to do at all with "steak" despite being called so, the buns were unimaginative and dry, the cheese was cold and sticky and the fries appeared to have originated from a freezer bag. you get a better burger in most pubs for half the price.

we shall never return.

mayfair is not an area i normally frequent but i ventured over to this part of town to try this high end steakhouse. jw steakhouse is set within the grosvenor house hotel, it has a classy, polished feel to it with low lighting & trendy fixtures. the service here is very attentive, we choose a bottle of the cheap wine, and at £36 that should give you an idea of price here & were presented with a tasty little loaf baked in a small pot - it was delicious. we opted to share the 'tomahawk' rib-eye, bearnaise sauce, truffle salt fries & sautéed wild mushrooms. the steak arrived as a whole piece and with it's huge bone throughout looked like something fred flintstone would eat, we were asked to check if it was cooked how we had requested (it was perfectly medium-rare) they took the steak back to the kitchen to slice up for us. there was more then enoughmeatfor too, beautifully flavoured, well cooked & worked so well with a perfectly zingy bearnaise sauce. the truffle salt fries were delicious with a lovely flavour, the mushrooms were great but i would have preferred them to have been a bit more garlicky. to finish my other half insisted we went for what is dubbed the 'best cheesecake this side of the pond' at £14 it is an expensive dessert but then when it arrived we could see why- it was enough to feed 5 people! the cheesecake was very nice, the gingery base was so good but the best cheesecake in the country? mmm i'm not sure it was nice but i wasn't wowed. all in all this a lovely place for a special occasion, the steak is fantastic but you will pay a high price for it.

for the sake of transparency i'm going to have to qualify this review from the start. tonight's meal was the most expensive i've ever had to pay for. those who know me will already know how much of my judgement this will affect, and i will be the first to admit that it has.

but it's experiences (for that must be what such a price buys) that tell you a lot about yourself - what you appreciate and value in life. i'll never see the value in designer labels or fancy jewellery but will easily spend on travel for instance. and although i've never claimed to be a foodie, today i can say with certainty that i'm not. i also know now that i am not a steak person - if the best steak in london doesn't do it for me, then none will. on the other hand i am able to appreciate why others might like a slab of meat, and i will also admit to have thoroughly enjoyed and seen value in meals that would have cost more than this one today.

enough philosophy though, let's get to the food. the menu was straightforward enough: we pre-ordered our halal steaks a few days in advance, with myself teaming up with another to split an angus rib-eye and american new york strip - we had no idea which to choose so we hedged our bets. this was lucky, as i definitely preferred the accessibility of the strip to the chewy gristle of the rib-eye, even though i would acknowledge that the latter tasted better.

starters and sides were standard enough, and not worth mentioning explicitly, barring the table bread which was all kinds of awesome. a special note does go to the cheesecake, which might just be the one thing i go back for (although the place does apparently do a decent fish and chips too).

the atmosphere, table configuration and service all confirm the theory that after a certain cost it's the experience you pay for and all were pretty much top notch, although also on par with other places i've been to but of a fraction of the price.

which brings me to the final bill. the evening cost an incredible (perhaps just to me and the student on the table) £55 per head, of which the steak alone was £35-40 depending on the cut chosen. if this is how much a decent steak costs, i can see why the consumption of redmeatcan indeed lead to heart attacks.

which leaves me in a pretty interesting position here at the end of this review. of course on principle there is no way i can give jw steakhouse a general recommendation. but if someone with more money than sense did ask me if i knew of a top-end steakhouse that would offer halal meat, then jw will always have to be the first i suggest to them.