Foxlow, Farringdon

We've been looking forward to this one for weeks! (or months?!) After many cancellations due to clashing schedules in our busy London go getter lives, the Tuesday we've been waiting for finally arrives. Being Tuesday it's BYOB £5 corkage day! A nice little touch that Foxlow and big sister Hawksmoor have introduced (on Mondays). This means we can save some of the strain on our meagre pay packages and still enjoy the glory and splendour of a top London eatery (or blow it on ordering way more than we need, guess which one we did?....oops)

So if you don't know, Foxlow opened a while back as a new venture from the Hawksmoor team. It's a neighbourhood vibe with a mixed crowd but more suits than not. The similarities to Hawksmoor are plain to see, the menu while having a lot less steak is still based on more salt, more fat, more sugar, more flavour! (and who am I to argue with that?!) Still top notch ingredients all round and a list of delights that will get any carnivore salivating. 10 hour beef rib, 8 hour bacon, fries with chicken salt! You get the vibe...

I arrive earlier than my counterpart but am excited as I get to try out the bar and cocktails (Hawksmoor Seven Dials bar is my favourite in town). At first I'm disappointed as there is no room whatsoever to put your legs under the bar, (Russell Norman would have a field day with his tape measure) so I'm forced to kind of sit sideways and twist my spine in the direction of the bar staff. Nothing on the cocktail list immediately takes my fancy so I order an Old Fashioned (the Hawksmoor ones are killer). It's serviceable but the bar staff do not really seem to know their way around and friendly chat is nil.

At the table we order Iberico Pork Ribs (smokey, succulent, big wow chops), and Smokehouse Rillettes to start (not all that)

Our main evening meal is Ten Hour Beef Short Rib with Kimchi (MASSIVE, 'that's insane fer a main), Iberico Pork 'Pluma' (gorgeous tender steak like slices of deliciousness), fries with chicken salt (How do chickens make salt? I don't know but they'd better make some more of it!) And some much needed spring greens.

Dessert is the Elvis Presley sandwich with bacon! and a bourbon caramel Sundae. We've overdone it. But have a couple of Digestif cocktails to make sure (and some salted caramel popcorn to take home).

Jackson + Rye, Wardour Street

It seems like we’ve become a couple of hard cases recently. So when we’re told ‘an hour or so’ for a table and then presented with an online queueing system that doesn’t work as we wait it out in a nearby gay pub, we’re less than impressed. 

Still we’re excited when our personalised text message comes through and we head into the restaurant to be presented with a pretty awesome window seat, net curtains and neon Soho sex shop lighting all part of the ambience. We’re told we have less than one hour at our table (ever been told that in a restaurant?!) So it’s against the clock!

Packed to the rafters on a Wednesday night, this place is so understaffed it hurts. Our hurried waitress is businesslike in uniform which feels weird in the age of the highly professional but informal dress code we’ve become accustomed to at the likes of Polpo and Hawksmoor. After 15 minutes our drinks order finally arrives and the one hour turnaround is looking less achievable. To start we order Shrimp + Grits and the Truffled Mac n’ Cheese. The Mac n’ Cheese arrives first, It is fairly lightweight which is good for a starter but there is no sign of the truffles! Tastes ok nonetheless. No sign of the Shrimp and Grits which have been forgotten. When they eventually arrive along with the main they are the best dish on the table, light and fluffy grits and flavoursome shrimp. We get the Buttermilk Fried Chicken with (not at all) spicy coleslaw (2 breasts super crispy and thick batter) and the Crab Cakes with Apple Slaw (a bit tastier). 

A couple of orders of each type of chips (shoestring and 'normal') arrive cold. We’re checking out. As our 1 hour time limit goes by we actually can’t wait to leave, but no-one seems bothered now. We get the bill and high-tail it out of there.

Verdict: Beautiful decor, furniture and bar, but badly executed. It was conceived by an (industry) God, but corrupted by the realities of (restaurant) life.

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Down

Quotes: “This place is for barbarians”