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Smiths of Smithfield (top floor): old values, new tricks

29/9/2012

18 Comments

 
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In our previous post on Smiths of Smithfield, we ate in the more casual second floor dining room but for today we took the lift to the top floor for Smith's high end steak offering. On both occasions of our visit to Smiths, we were meeting friends and I have always found Smiths to be good for bringing people together. Indeed, I've been dining on and off at Smiths for more than 10 years now and never have I had anything less than a good time there. But with competition for steaks in London having really increased in recent years ranging from Goodman to Cut on Park Lane, how would Smiths fare?

What's great about the top floor at Smiths is how light and airy the dining room is. With windows on two sides and an outside balcony for when the weather is a little nicer, you nest comfortably above the City with an ever improving view of London's developing skyline taking in Smithfield market, the Barbican, the City and the Shard.

The menu is mostly how I remember it though reading a touch funkier these days, but importantly, the steaks are still centre place. I've said before that the holy trinity of steak descriptions has to be country/county of origin, breed of cow and the days aged, and typically the menu at Smiths reads: Hereford Rump, 63 days Dry aged on the bone from Rg Tamblin, Liskeard Cornwall. I like that level of detail. With it too of course comes cost and you should expect to pay around £35 for a steak, prices broadly in line with Goodman. 

One small quirk is that when the bread arrives, for a table of three, there's only three individual rolls, each different. Last person to the bread plate then effectively gets what's left, no choice. Butter too comes in a modest portion. For a top end dining establishment, it's a little behind the times here (at Roganic, three varieties of roll are delivered for each guests; three guests means nine rolls).

The three starters ordered are dressed crab, mackerel and squid. It's been a little while since I ate here last and the kitchen is upping the ante on both presentation and innovation, the crab coming with apple jelly and avocado ice cream while presented on pebbles with edible bread crumb sand. Not my dish and nor did I get to taste it as my friend deemed it too good to share.

My order was for the mackerel and here there was a lot going on with the plate but in a good way, enough to keep my interest rather than it being overly busy without reason. As well as the mackerel fillets there's a gorgeous mackerel pate in a beetroot jelly and more beetroot in other presentations. It's a good and generous starter. Only the squid was a modest let down: nicely cooked it provided an enjoyable first few bites but insufficient variety on the plate however soon led to waning interest.

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the dining room looks out over the famous market, and here, the Barbican and the City
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the dining room
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bread for three was an odd misstep
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dressed crab with apple and avocado
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squid with green chilli and coriander
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mackerel seared, smoked pate, tarragon, candy beetroot
There was never any doubt about what form the main course would take but what exactly to order kept us in lively discussion. We eventually settled on a 63 day aged on the bone Hereford rump steak (Cornwall), and the 'for two to share' 28 days aged bone in ribeye (Devon) with everything to be shared by the table. For sides, we sampled the thin chips, the fat chips, the mash and several of the sauces.

Critically then, how did the steaks fare? Very well. We spent some time later that day discussing them and we all agreed they were very good indeed and any quibbling on the meat was mostly splitting hairs by people lucky enough to have eaten in too many places. We debated the merits of Josper cooking (Smiths does not we believe use one) and the extent to which that impacts the flavour but the bottom line is we all thoroughly enjoyed what was set in front of us.

The chips were good too both thin and fat. The thin chips looked a little pale but were in fact great to eat, and the fat chips were excellent for scooping up the bearnaise and Stilton sauces. For the mash, a heavier hand with the butter would have lifted it considerably and elevate it from the 'too close to what you can make at home' variety presented. 

Overall however, all three of us were happy diners. 
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rump (foreground) and ribeye behind
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Hereford rump
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Fat chips and mash
By the time we got to desserts, the kitchen was really letting its hair down and they delivered something of a wow moment taking us totally by surprise. It was my chocolate ganache that stole the show being something like 18 inches of chocolate loveliness winding its way down the plate. Accordingly, it became almost a journey starting at one end of the plate and systematically eating to the other, with different elements changing the tasting scenery along the way. There's a couple of ice creams including lime and mint, some chocolate crumble for texture, there's avocado jelly and even some basil gel. It made for a really fun dessert and Smiths are to be applauded in my view for pushing the boat out here and making it fun as well as tasty.
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apricot
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chocolate tart and strawberry
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chocolate ganache
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coffee and petit fours
The top floor at Smiths has kept true to its traditional core proposition of offering great steaks in a top end dining environment but I like the fact that either side of this with the starters and especially desserts, they are willing to push their own identity into the food. To that extent, Smiths is recognisably the same restaurant as it was in my previous visits but it has also moved forward to make the food just that little bit more exciting, even picking up on (but not over doing) a number of prevailing food trends.

Our criteria then going in to today was to enjoy great steaks with friends in a convivial environment, and Smiths fully delivered on that for us. What's more, they showed us they had a few new tricks up their sleeve too. The result: everybody left happy. What more can we ask? 


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18 Comments
Lee link
28/9/2012 11:17:10 pm

Fun post, looks great all round. 63 days... Is that getting towards the upper limit of how long steak can be aged before it turns to... something else?!

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thecriticalcouple
29/9/2012 03:41:20 am

I have heard of some places that have tried 90 days and even 120 days. this seems like pushing it, possibly no additional gain, can even ruin it and you end up paying something silly.

other readers might have their own experiences?

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Simon
29/9/2012 03:23:52 am

I'm increasingly irritated by your grammar when using the word "too". When the meaning is "also, in addition to", it would be nice to see an occasional comma. For example:

"Butter, too, comes in a modest portion."

"The chips were good, too..."

"...a few new tricks up their sleeve, too."

Your grammar is generally of a decent standard; this just seems to be a bit of a blind spot. (You have a similar issue with "then", but let's take this one step at a time.)

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thecriticalcouple
29/9/2012 03:34:19 am

fair comment. we all pick up bad habits over a lifetime, will try harder.

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thecriticalcouple
29/9/2012 03:57:29 am

Simon,

on the use of commas, I disagree however.

Despite its increasing age, my copy of The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers states that:

The correct use of the comma - if there is such a thing as 'correct' use - can only be acquired by common sense, observation and taste. Present practice is markedly different from that of the past in using commas much less freely.

It is this latter point of modern usage seeing commas used 'much less freely' which I believe is the current accepted view. Adopting this practice has seen me remove commas from my text where I believe it would encumber the flow of the text. Hence:

Butter too comes in a modest portion

vs

Butter, too, comes in a modest portion

The second version, with commas, may be correct in an old fashioned sense but it slows things down without giving that much extra. I therefore go with the more modern school that 'allows' the use commas somewhat more sparingly.

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Simon
29/9/2012 04:48:55 am

It isn't "old fashioned" to use commas such that meaning is enhanced, ambiguity diminished and style improved. This is the very essence of grammar. Say out loud "Butter too comes in a modest portion." I'll wager you do not run the first three words into each other - buttatoocumz; rather there will be emphasis around the "too" (to a lesser or greater extent) which should be reflected in the written form. This is the "common sense" of which Sir Ernest spake.

Lee Burns link
29/9/2012 10:31:24 am

I have to say, I'm with Simon here. When reading anything, I really appreciate judicious use of commas which clearly allow me to follow the flow and emphasis of the sentence. When done well (correctly?!) it is perfectly possible to construct really quite long sentences, without diminishing the reader's ability to follow the meaning.

For what it's worth, I find the writing on this blog to benefit from pleasing linguistic flourishes, while being slightly diminished by some loose grammar. But hey, it's a blog, I don't come here for the perfectly sub-edited prose.

On the beef thing, I'd be really interested whether people think that after approx 28 days aging something akin to the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Most amazing steak I ever bought and didn't mess up the cooking of was a 28 day aged bit of rump from http://www.bhbeef.com/. Amazingly powerful flavour, presumably having something to do with the fact that they get to 5 years before slaughter. Steak- so many variables!

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Tom
29/9/2012 10:40:22 am

In a fairness, the butter was sufficient to the limited quantity of bread.

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Alan Spedding ( cumbriafoodie ) link
2/10/2012 12:35:13 am

On the whole the food looks great. Unfortunately i`ve never had a Steak "experience " so i`m still from the stable of " A steak`s a steak ".
The puds were to die for....right up my street.
The bread....Terrible but that`s just a little tweak which can be made overnight and would cap everything off just perfectly.

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Alan spedding ( cumbriafoodie ) link
2/10/2012 12:39:43 am

Simon....Get yourself a f****** life mate....you need to get out more.

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Simon
3/10/2012 03:30:51 am

I think you'll find it's "Get yourself a f****** life, mate."

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Lee link
3/10/2012 04:17:33 am

This caused a chuckle. Nothing worse than grammatically imprecise insults, especially when they're not really called for.

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Timmy Jones
3/10/2012 10:29:59 am

The food looks great, but you guys, really, do need to get a life!

Reply
thecriticalcouple
4/10/2012 10:46:19 am

is there not irony in someone who reads a food blog telling someone who writes a food blog to get a life?

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David
9/10/2012 04:59:02 am

A more general question - I spotted a Chataeu Latour 97 hiding in one of the pics, no doubt intentionally. What is your general view of restaurants and corkage? Are they happy to do it for fairly decent wine that they otherwise do not have?

Reply
thecriticalcouple
9/10/2012 09:28:31 am

Prices for corkage vary with some restaurants doing it for free generally. Some do it for free on quiet days like a Monday. The corkage thing however is always easier if you have a relationship with the restaurant. If you've been a regular in a restaurant and have a relationship with the maitre d' it's hard to believe that if you ask to bring in a special bottle that they would say no.

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Dan
10/6/2013 03:09:27 pm

And how was the Latour?!

TCC
10/6/2013 05:08:32 pm

excellent, always




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