MY PLATE OF VIEW
Gridiron by COMO, Old Park Lane, W1
If you love food, there are few less auspicious combinations of words than ‘hotel restaurant’. Gridiron is a restaurant in a hotel—the Como Metropolitan on Old Park Lane, to be precise—but, praise be, it definitely isn’t a hotel restaurant. It actually used to be the Met Bar, Cool Britannia’s premier watering hole, but today, it’s a grill overseen by Richard H. Turner, one half of butchers Turner & George. There’s still a bar, but it’s the non-rowdy kind now: my friend and I park ourselves at it with glasses of sparkling Black Chalk from Hampshire as we study the menu.
Meat, understandably, is the thing here, with a focus on cuts cooked over the eponymous gridiron. Word to the wise: don’t do what we did and fill up on crisp little morsels from the Snacks section (scampi with jalapeño tartare, lamb-belly fritters with mint aioli), because what’s coming is a serious belt-buster. We all know we should be eating better quality meat on a more occasional basis—and this is the place to do it.
As I kick things off with chunks of Cornish lobster twirled into angel-hair pasta, my friend gnaws on Herdwick chops with earthy smoked aubergine. He follows this with Hereford rump steak, bone-marrow gravy and cheesy mash, topped with braised trotter and shards of pork crackling. ‘I feel as if I’m eating the cast of Animal Farm,’ he announces between mouthfuls. Munch, munch. ‘That’s a good thing.’ For balance, I get the roast monkfish, which comes with peas, gem lettuce and modish slivers of lardo (sorry, Snowball).
By the time we open the pudding menu, things are in danger of going a bit Mr Creosote—we show heroic restraint by splitting an armagnac soaked sticky-toffee pudding with clotted cream. The puddings all have suggested drinks pairings, and there’s a separate Under the Counter wine list, made up of rare and special three-figure bottles. If you do happen to be in the market for a blowout of this magnitude, Gridiron’s location presents an advantage: viz, you only need to stagger upstairs to sleep it off.