Block Soho: "A terribly disappointing and poor value experience" - restaurant review

Soho Block, Clarion House, 2 Saint Anne's Court, London W1F 0AZ (020 3376 9999). Appetizers £9-£17, Sunday lunch £15-£26, desserts £9, wines from £27 poster for the Sunday lunch I had just finished. It carried the slogan: “Whole joints, big flames, good times”. Finally, I felt like I was being taken care of. Because if there's one thing I can use, it's clear criteria to judge a restaurant. So, let's start in the middle. Once upon a time there were great flames on this site. It is a wide, low space in a pedestrianized lane between Wardour and Dean streets in London's Soho. Over the years, it's been many things: American deli, tapas bar, Dante's Seventh Circle of Hell soaked in vodka.
In 2015, the company behind Goodman Steakhouse and The Hilarious Deluxe Steak and Seafood Beast turned it into a high-value seafood restaurant called Rex and Mariano, but apparently there weren't enough people in London who wanted salted clams for £6 at a time because Londoners are idiots. Instead, it became Zelman Meats, named after owner Mikhail Zelman. They did a few things – steaks, slow roasted short ribs, grilled oysters – very well. I remember a great Sunday lunch, with irregular sombrero-sized Yorkshires, crispy dark-hued roasts, and slices of what I then called taffeta-pink slices of beef.
To cook their steaks, they built a huge charcoal grill in the open kitchen, and when the fat animals sank, the flames really got very big indeed; so much so that they erected a transparent protective screen to protect those seated at the counter lining the kitchen from third-degree burns. They remained seated, as if they were face to face with a wild animal in a cage. In a way, they were.
Zelman's closed during lockdown, but little has been done in the space since new owners arrived , except for a few expensive marks on the walls. They kept the circular marble trough just inside the door as well as the cabins and tops. Unfortunately, it appears that the caged animal has been released. If there are big flames in this new restaurant, they are not in the open kitchen this Sunday noon. It contains only two harassed-looking cooks. The grill is off.

Recipe Oct 4, 2022 0 71 Add to Reading List

Block Soho: "A terribly disappointing and poor value experience" - restaurant review

Soho Block, Clarion House, 2 Saint Anne's Court, London W1F 0AZ (020 3376 9999). Appetizers £9-£17, Sunday lunch £15-£26, desserts £9, wines from £27 poster for the Sunday lunch I had just finished. It carried the slogan: “Whole joints, big flames, good times”. Finally, I felt like I was being taken care of. Because if there's one thing I can use, it's clear criteria to judge a restaurant. So, let's start in the middle. Once upon a time there were great flames on this site. It is a wide, low space in a pedestrianized lane between Wardour and Dean streets in London's Soho. Over the years, it's been many things: American deli, tapas bar, Dante's Seventh Circle of Hell soaked in vodka.

In 2015, the company behind Goodman Steakhouse and The Hilarious Deluxe Steak and Seafood Beast turned it into a high-value seafood restaurant called Rex and Mariano, but apparently there weren't enough people in London who wanted salted clams for £6 at a time because Londoners are idiots. Instead, it became Zelman Meats, named after owner Mikhail Zelman. They did a few things – steaks, slow roasted short ribs, grilled oysters – very well. I remember a great Sunday lunch, with irregular sombrero-sized Yorkshires, crispy dark-hued roasts, and slices of what I then called taffeta-pink slices of beef.

' If the beef came in slices on a whole joint, I would expect them to be pink, which is what they prepared for our photographer at a later date: a roast beef lunch.

To cook their steaks, they built a huge charcoal grill in the open kitchen, and when the fat animals sank, the flames really got very big indeed; so much so that they erected a transparent protective screen to protect those seated at the counter lining the kitchen from third-degree burns. They remained seated, as if they were face to face with a wild animal in a cage. In a way, they were.

Zelman's closed during lockdown, but little has been done in the space since new owners arrived , except for a few expensive marks on the walls. They kept the circular marble trough just inside the door as well as the cabins and tops. Unfortunately, it appears that the caged animal has been released. If there are big flames in this new restaurant, they are not in the open kitchen this Sunday noon. It contains only two harassed-looking cooks. The grill is off.