Quality chop House report: We went for Sunday Roast there, exactly 4 weeks ago. It was a pleasant stroll from the Farringdon tube station, and we got to it a little early, so took a stroll around the neighborhood, somewhere I’d never been before. Imagine my surprise to find Exmouth Market, a car-free (that day, anyway) street lined with restaurants and people ticking into brunch at restaurant after restaurant. It sounds like it’s been that way for some time, and not something just recently gentrified.
Back at the Quality Chop House at our reserved time, the Hostess led us to our table in the next room. She said, barely audible to me, “mind the step,” much my husband, a couple of feet further back, didn’t hear. He also was watching where she and I were going, turning to the right, so didn’t see the small brass sign at waist height on the left t he at said to mind the step. It was an unexpected drop of an inch or two from the floor height in the first room, which was just enough to throw him off a bit, but he stayed on his feet, and didn’t land on one of the closely-spaced tables. In the Underground, mind the gap - at Quality Chop House, mind the step.
Sunday is roast day, so the menu is an assortment of roasts (beef, pork, lamb or mutton, fish, and a vegetarian roast celeriac, plus a ton of accompanying sides. There were also “snacks” and “starters”, plus desserts. We ordered hogget croquettes to begin. Hogget is a “teenage” sheep, older than a baby lamb, but younger than a full adult. Those were delicious. Carafe of rosé wine.
Other diners came and went, and we waited patiently for our roasts (beef and saddleback pork) to arrive, nursing the rosé in the meantime. They didn’t, and they didn’t. We finally reminded one of the busy waitresses that our main courses hadn’t come, and she checked with the kitchen. Apparently there’d been some mix-up with how they identify what to prepare, and when. Our food arrived shortly thereafter, with apologies. It was delicious, but took an excessively long time to get fed, as people who’d arrived after us had already eaten and left. We didn’t want to be pushy, so waited - probably longer than most would’ve - to say anything.
The servers indicated they’d make it up to us, and I imagined there’d be a reduction in our bill. What they did was bring a serving of their “signature dessert,” which wasn’t on the menu that day - olive oil ice cream, made with an extremely exclusive olive oil, in addition to cream, sugar, etc. The olive oil puddles scattered in the ice cream were really delicious, and it was a step or two (maybe more) above garden variety ice cream. That was complimentary, but no deductions to our check. We didn’t ask for a reduction (again, not wanting to be pushy diners), but it seemed as if more than a dish of tasty ice cream might’ve been offered, after being neglected for so long. The food was fabulous, but the kitchen line’s attention to getting it made was lacking. We’ll speak up sooner, should that happen again elsewhere.
The restaurant also has £15 cookbooks (one table was perusing one while waiting for their food - which came before ours. Based on a sign that I was told is old and no longer applies, they once offered butchering classes. That’s more intense than the average cooking class that teaches one to three recipes in two or three hours!
