On Saturday me and Brian went to town (London town!) and had a brilliant day out despite the weather being rubbish. I’ll cover the rest of the day in another post, but thought I’d start out with a(nother) Foxlow review. Foxlow is of course the sister restaurant to the Hawksmoor chain, which we love and visit as often as I can find an excuse to! Hawksmoor is famous for the quality of the meat and fish they sell and I love pretty much everything they do; from innovative cocktails, to brilliant burgers, steaks and ribs, through to glorious deserts. I would highly recommend you visit Hawksmoor if you haven’t yet.
Foxlow is in St John Street in Farringdon, just a little bit along from Fergus Henderson’s St John, which is another restaurant I REALLY want to eat at. We popped into Giant Robot for a drink before dinner and vowed to go back there sometime for their burgers. I suppose my expectations of Foxlow were always going to be high as Hawkmoor has set the bar so high, so I knew I would have to keep an open mind if I was to try and be objective about Foxlow. First impressions were good with service swift and friendly. I was very tempted by the cocktail list but as we’d already had quite a few drinks by then I opted to stick to wine. There are some very interesting sounding cocktails on the list though, with the Pickle Buck and Smokestack Mary especially drawing my attention.
For food I chose the Smokehouse Rilettes for a starter and the Eight Hour Bacon Rib with Maple & Chilli for a main, with some greens for a side. Brian had the Rib Fillet for a main alongside the Beef Dripping Potatoes. The Rilettes was lovely, moist and tasty with just the right amount of fat, though I expected a bit more taste and towards the end of the dish it was rather bland.
The Bacon Rib, similarly didn’t pack the punch I expected it to. The rib comes with a thick chunk of roasted pineapple and some sauce on the side, and I didn’t really like either. Perhaps the addition of the sauce and pineapple might work for some people but as I am not a great pineapple fan I left this on the side, having the rib on its own. The meat was top quality, it has to be said with very little fat and just lovely tender chunks of pork, but somehow lacking in taste. The greens were very good and Brian said his steak was good as well, though it looked very overcooked to me. The potatoes of course were great, but then to me most potato dishes are great! In hindsight I probably should have had the Beef Shortrib rather than the Bacon.
For desert we shared the Apple Crumble Sundae which was quite good, though not all that exciting. While paying the bill we got talking to the couple next to us who kindly let me take pictures of their desert as well as I simply had to get a picture of the famous Elvis Presley Sandwich with Candied Bacon!
While Foxlow has polished service, nice cocktails and an interesting menu with lots of options I like, I’m not sure we will be going back anytime soon – will probably rather stick with Hawksmoor!
Biltong and Burger 