Paternoster Chop House has been around since 2004 and is one of many restaurants from the D&D conglomerate. It’s located in Paternoster Square, right by the stunning St Paul’s Cathedral and as the name suggests the speciality is chops, be it lamb, pork along with steak – all on the bone and butchered in-house. Vegetarians do not belong here. Just saying. Inside it’s sleek – full of tan wood furnishings, adorned with red leather banquettes along with a nicely styled bar and an open kitchen. Dare I say it, First Dates is also filmed here too. I came for a treat, an expensed lunch from my employers at the time for being a nice human.
Front of house wear aprons.
A group of 11 of us dined here for a boozy office lunch which meant the restaurant could only offer a set menu vs a la carte. Whiskey and ginger was ordered to kick off proceedings!
Pinot Noir £44 and a Malbec £59 were some of the bottles we consumed – both were great.
We were given separate menus which were prepared before we came.
Skate wing, burned butter and brown shrimps; since I couldn’t decide to go for either the steak or skate from the mains, the restaurant allowed me to have both for a £10 supplement. Naturally I opt for fish for starters. Slithers of tender collagenous skate slid off the bone with a brush of the fork – combined with the glistening nutty butter and sweet shrimps, it slid down my throat too.
I wish they hadn’t brought out this bread as it was as hard as crackers.
Steak tartare and prawn cocktail eaten by my fellow diners.
My Aberdeen Angus 42 day aged ribeye. I always have my steak mid-rare – this however turned up practically well done to the point of drying. It was sacrilege to this piece of meat and if I wasn’t so full from the skate I would have returned it. I ended up leaving most of it on the plate. A crying shame really.
In stark contrast my neighbouring diner, “Elle” was kind enough to pass me her ribeye cap as she was full, her piece was cooked to a beautiful mid-rare as you can see. It was a brilliant piece of steak packed full of flavour and it was redeeming corner.
The chips tasted triple cooked.
Cabbage.
Condiments – peppercorn, red wine gravy, béarnaise, horseradish. In my humble opinion sauces are not needed if the steak is good enough.
Crème brûlée with biscotti. The crème brûlée was mediocre and the biscotti was so hard it took the amaretti! See what I did there? I nearly took someone’s eye out with the rock like biscuit, go for it if you have the jaw power of a pit bull.
Plum Bakewell tart, clotted cream. I’m not a fan of clotted cream so the kitchen staff were more than happy to replace it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The tart was too dense though and really lacked that oven freshness.
This was passed to me by “Elle” as she dislikes mint-choc ice cream – I love it. The mint flavour was bright and fresh as if the leaves of the plant were freshly mixed in. The apple and raspberry sorbet were winners too – both exuded lots of fruit flavour.
Jaeger bomb £8.50 – don’t ask!
Verdict:
When did I go? Sept 2016
The damage: Expect to pay £60-£80 per head with many drinks.
The good: I can see the appeal of having a boozy office lunch here as we did, the service brisk and warm too, the chipper staff definitely took care of us. My favourite bits of the meal was that marvellous skate, rib eye cap from my dining buddy and the ice cream/sorbet combo.
The bad: Overall the food was a tepid experience, especially the well-done rib eye, that was a terrible waste of animal and the deserts in general were naff. The bread is also best suited for breadcrumbs or to feed the pigeons.
Rating: 2.5/5
Would I go again? No
Address: Warwick Court, London, EC4M 7DX
Closest tube: St Pauls
Phone: 020 7029 9400
Web: http://www.paternosterchophouse.co.uk
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