JW Steakhouse — Restaurant in London

To sum it up: Excellent wine, great steak, good fries, ok peppercorn sauce, huge dessert. Friendly and professional staff.

JW Steakhouse is a steak restaurant located inside the Grosvenor House hotel, right on Park Lane. I entered through the main hotel entrance and then walked straight into the restaurant on the left. JW Steakhouse is a big dining hall dominated by dark and warm colours. I really liked the atmosphere, it was not too loud and even the muted pop music in the background was not too annoying - who doesn’t like a bit of Bryan Adams classics every now and then?

The place has a nice atmosphere and staff were pretty friendly. The only apparent interior design flaw I noticed, without being too picky, was a staff corridor that opened opposite my table - that would have been fine with me, but I found it surprising that whenever the door opened, I was distracted by this bringt neon light in this white corridor, that simply did not match the dimmed lighting, warm colours and nice atmosphere in the dining hall. While this corridor might be a good example of minimal and functional design, it also seems a bit odd for such a place.

The well-trained waiter kicked off with asking me for drinks. That’s always a good start. I found a Salmon Run, Riesling/Chardonnay, Finger Lakes, USA 2011 by the glass, which sounded like an interesting combination to me, so I went for that. And indeed, it was a very decent wine, I would definitely order it again. It had this typical, lovely and distinct minerally Riesling character, was easy to drink and even a bit fruity. A good choice.

I was there for an early dinner and went directly to the main courses. They have a number of different cuts and two different suppliers. As I wanted to taste their USDA meat, I ordered a small fillet steak with bourbon peppercorn sauce and salt and truffle fries.

The food was almost as good as it sounds. The steak came medium rare as recommended by my waiter and tasted great. The peppercorn sauce was a bit of a let down, for me it could have had a stronger pepper kick to it. It was not bad, but a little bit bland for a peppercorn sauce.

The chips were quite skinny and very salt and truffly. I must admit, they were bordering on being too salty, and the strong salt flavour had the potential to spoil the excellent taste of the steak. On the other side, I really enjoyed the fries, despite I later saw crispy fluffy chunky chips arriving at the next table and they also looked tempting.

For dessert I got an enormous apple pie with delicious cinnamon ice cream. The dessert was almost too big, but it tasted really good, so I could not just leave half of it uneaten...

At some point during my dinner, I noticed that I did not get any bread after I arrived. I expected a place like JW Steakhouse to server bread, but you never know - so I looked again at the menu, and also did not find the bread there. Around the same time, I saw other tables getting fresh bread rolls with butter. As you can always impress me with good bread, you can always disappoint me with no or even bad bread. When the lovely smell of fresh rolls made its way up my nose from the next table, I became a bit sad.

I asked my waiter for the bill, and not too long after, a nice girl came over and handled the payment procedure. I spotted the bread rolls on my bill and could not stop myself from mentioning that I did not get them. They are complimentary, but still. She apologised and explained, that they usually get a new batch ready just after I ordered, so they probably overlooked my order because they did not have any fresh buns at the moment.

Overall, I liked the food, my wine was excellent and I was very pleased with my waiter, the service and I think the bun mishap was managed well enough. In my opinion, JW Steakhouse is a reasonably good place to...

Dinner booking for Saturday evening. The steakhouse is situated in the opulent surroundings of the Grosvenor House Hotel. We reached the reception desk where the concierge assumed we walked off the street without a reservation and immediately told us there were no tables available. (This was patently untrue as the place remained half empty throughout the 2 hrs we stayed.) after realising his mistake he duly apologised and found us a table.

Our waiter was very attentive. Though his expertise was detailed knowledge of whiskey which we did not have.

Staters were scallops and cream of crab soup. The scallops were good though on the small side. The soup was luke warm and bland.

For an American steak house the absence of USDA Prime ribeye steak was a glaring omission. We thus resorted to the lesser (though equally expensive) New York strip steak. We chose standard sides of thick cut chips and creamy mash.

Steaks were served medium rare with Bernaise and garlic butter. These steaks were essentially tasteless. Having been to the top steak joints in London these steaks were by far the least impressive. I’m also not convinced that they were USDA prime. I suspect closer to select or canner grade. There was no rendering of fat or marbled fat juice. At 52£ per steak the mark up on wholesale price would be around 300%. The sauces were unimaginative. The Bernaise sauce seemed to be out of a carton and not freshly made.

Chips and mash were again very bland something akin to school dinners.

For dessert we chose the signature cheesecake. This is a massive serving of thick crust and dry crumbly cheese cake mix. Apart from the serving portion it had no redeeming qualities. No accompanying fruit coulis to cut the bland taste. Also after the waiter cut the massive cake into slices the result was a gloopy mess on a plate.

Only one of waiting staff knew anything, the rest seemed to have just started working and couldn’t answer basic questions about the menu. Others gave us aloof and quizzical looks when asked if we could have ketchup.

Thoroughly average experience. £210 bill. No tip was left as there were nothing impressive.

This place is designed for whisky and bourbon drinkers. The steaks are a side order. Please consider rebranding to JW Whisky Bar.

3 stars only because we found parking...

What a great place. This was a birthday treat and after looking online at other London Steakhouses we agreed JW appeared to hit the mark.

On arrival, service was impeccable. Professional, courteous, relaxed and inviting with nothing feeling too much trouble. A fairly extensive menu with the specials board also clearly on display.

I was unsure of what to go for and after a chat with the staff I was presented with a couple of steaks to show the different cuts and sizes of what was available.

I chose the 1000gm Porterhouse and it was perfectly cooked and presented. I was given the option of having it sliced by the chef or not, which obviously I took. This was by far the best steak I have ever had. Having been so engrossed in the steak I finished up without even touching my side of creamed spinach, thankfully they were very happy to put it into a doggy bag to take home.

Starter was the Steak Tartare, I went for the smaller 4oz option, which was still a generous size.

My partner went for the Calimari to start, which was a huge partition perfectly cooked, and a simple salad for main. She had originally chosen one of the fish options but when the calimari came out she realised she wouldn’t have space for it all so quickly amended her order. The portions are very generous, but it is most definitely NOT quantity over quality, it was of an excellent standard.

The dessert list had everything we wanted, but after such a feast we settled on sharing the Mississippi mud pie from the specials. Another generous portion and then was also presented with a complimentary ‘Happy Birthday’ miniature signature cheesecake…wow!

Had a cocktail to begin with followed by a couple of glasses of red. Highly recommend the Federalist Bourbon Barrel Aged Cabernet Savignon.

The staff were fantastic, the assistant manager Sotiris couldn’t have been more helpful. Our waitress Sabina was faultless. Both were knowledgeable and professional, welcoming and helpful. Excellent service without feeling wooden or soul-less. Both read the customer well and showed their own personalities and interacted well. They are both a credit to the establishment.

This will be the go to steakhouse for me from now on. Not the cheapest, but definitely well worth...