jw steakhouse - grosvenor house

set within a 5 star hotel, jw steakhouse comes with 5 star pricing, though meat lovers will attest that qualitysteakis 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.

anothersteakrestaurant looking to be the best in london, jw steakhouse has set itself a challenge that few would relish. the competition challenging for that top table place is fierce and only last week, my stk london waiter promised me 'the beststeakof my life', but he needs to get out more. i have further reservations here however as jws is in, and part of, grosvenor house hotel, park lane, a jw marriott hotel, hence jw steakhouse: this is rarely good news. the hotel-steakhouse arrangement is not one we have liked for either  cut at 45 park lane or stk london.   restaurant menus have been rotated from portrait to landscape while the online menu i'm looking at right now starts with dessert, then has wines by the glass, and then moves to starters, steaks, market potatoes before finishing with soups & salads, mains and sides. are they trying just a little too hard to be different i wonder  on the starters, there's kansas citysteaksoup which sounds kind of fun, so tempted, but with

been in jw grosvenor hotel several times, and had the chance to try this restaurant.
the waitresses always feel you welcomed, they are so friendly.
as a starter, the prawn cocktail is tasty. for the main, the ribeyesteakis delicious.
definitely a recommended steakhouse in london.

we arrived to the gorgeous setting of jw steakhouse in the grosvenor house on a wednesday evening. 

we automatically had a fantastic waitress call ceara who knew everything inside and out about the menu so we decided to take her advice. 

starters: 

- prawn cocktail- jumbo prawns with caviar- what more could you ask for 

- tuna tartare- topped with avocado spread- so fresh. absolutely delicious 

mains: 

- ribeyesteaktopped with crab, asparagus and hollandaise sauce. this was gorgeous. highly recommend! 

sides and sauces: 

- potatoes gratin with truffle salt on top- gorgeous! 

- sweet potato fries 

- red wine sauce and peppercorn sauce 

desserts: 

- ultimate cheesecake- you must try this- it's the best i have ever had. it is huge so ask for a doggy bag! 

- apple pie- so fresh filled with apple bits and raisins! 

we chose our menu so well and recommend all of the above! 

make sure you are hungry because you will be full for days! huge portions.

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. thesteakarrived 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 thesteakback to the kitchen to slice up for us. there was more then enough meat for 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, thesteakis 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 asteakperson - if the beststeakin 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 thesteakalone was £35-40 depending on the cut chosen. if this is how much a decentsteakcosts, i can see why the consumption of red meat can 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.

the best way to describe jw steakhouse is big, which is quite appropriate given its american inspiration.  a spacious room is filled with large wooden furniture, including tables big enough to play table tennis on and comfy armchairs sturdy enough to hold the biggest boned of our cousins from across the pond. cow comes in the form of various cuts of usda prime corn fed and aberdeen angus, which are treated to a spell in a 650 degree montague legend grill.  the real showpiece however, is the somewhat dramatically named 32 ounce on-the-bone rib eye ‘tomahawk’steak– a cut that can only be found at jw steakhouse.  whilst the adam richman in us wanted to attempt the man v food sized s