Tallow — Restaurant in Norwich

If a restaurant is brave enough to have only one item on its main menu, it has to deliver a spectacular dining experience. When it comes to food quality, Tallow puts its money where its mouth is.

Situated on St Benedict's Street this relatively small restaurant can be located easily by looking for the queue of people standing outside waiting for a table. The interior is warmly lit with with bright colours and real plants hanging from the ceiling. The restaurant is usually full at all times but remains clean and comfortable. The toilet facilities are gender neutral and are well stocked with high quality toiletries including sanitary items. Unfortunately the toilets are not accessible, and I would think the restaurant would struggle to comfortably accommodate a wheelchair.

The menu is unusually small with a very limited selection of drinks, sides, and only one main menu item; a butler steak. The few sides that are available are classic accompaniments to a steak, along with dipping sauces. The steaks are cooked sous vide and so can only be done medium-rare to well done. However, this makes the wait times for food very short, and the steaks consistently excellent. The sides were delicious, and I found the portions generally good whilst remaining inexpensive. A satisfying steak and chips with a bottomless soft drink comes to just over £20. I do find the fact you can buy a classic 99 ice cream here for the actual price of 99p really quiet endearing. Unfortunately, this praise cannot be extended to the drinks menu. The only beer available was Krombacher and for over £7 a pint this could well price some people out. There is only one red and one white wine available and simply listing it as "house" with no other information I found really quite annoying. There is an option for bottomless soft drinks for a reasonable price, which seemed strange considering the random pretentiousness of the other items on the drinks menu. It made the meal have an unexplainable childlike feeling which for me damaged the overall experience.

The service staff were pleasant, albeit with a slightly strange approach to taking a table's order. The server listed out the menu and you raised your hand if you wanted the item they just read. Perhaps with a small menu and a large group this is effective, but I can't say I was a huge fan of this.

Considering the food, this restaurant is a great experience for a great price. All I would like to see from Tallow is to adopt a better selection of drinks to accompany the food, and it may push this restaurant to a top spot among the intense competition of St...

Popped in with my partner a couple of weeks ago after hearing about a place focusing on just the one cut of steak and only served medium rare. This tickled my pickle and I was not disappointed. The menu is minimal and I respect that, the butler steak is the lovely and fairly priced. The sides compliment the steak beautifully, we went for the burnt butter mashed potato (lovely umami, almost marmite like), the creamed spinach which made me grin as it slaps and not many places do it nowadays, the beef drip chips were fine but I didn't get much of that flavour from the beef fat. We also got the seasonal greens which turned out to just be a medley of steamed veg (Savoy, edamame, carrot). These sides are/ we're £4 each which isn't too shabby but some are better than others. The selection of sauces were grand and only £1 each which is not bad at all. I went for the peppercorn sauce, classic and perfectly peppery. My partner went for bearnaise, just as nice and I do look forward to trying the gorgonzola next time. With it being fairly fresh and the concept being very popular with the masses, it was busy and luckily we we're only a table of 2 making it easy to fit us in. Whilst we were seated and having our drinks order, a walk-in of 6 came in and asked to be seated. There isn't really capacity for more than a table of 4 (booth tables) and these peeps weren't too happy with not being able to have a table straight away. They decided to wait by the entrance inside and we're in the way for around 30/40 minutes and that was the only thing that ruined the vibe for me. The staff were very patient with them, got them seated and out the way eventually. I highly recommend coming in for a steak dinner, it's quick and easy but be aware you may have to queue. Probably worth...

Inexpensive dining with a touch of class.

As a concept, the noble British steakhouse is well known, and walking past Tallow on St Benedicts you'd be forgiven for thinking this is like any one of the many others in the city.

However Tallow presents something quite different that I'm not sure has been explored yet here in Norwich.

The Butler steak cut is phenomenally popular, and would frequently fly off the menu at the nearby Weavers arms, so to get an exclusive supply of it is the first Great point of note for this excellent restaurant.

Having had much success in various other dining enterprises, such as Yard, and Brick Pizza, it was great to see familiar faces both greeting guests and in the kitchen that had provided excellent service and food before - being welcomed to a new restaurant like an old friend is quite a unique experience in itself!

The menu is direct and incredibly well priced, between the two of us we ordered two steak, beef dripping fries, a bowl of mash, some creamed spinach and bottomless coca cola for less money than you'd spend at a spoons on the same.

And here's the kicker: This is a proper square steak meal. Cooked to your liking and garnished with any one of four sauces (peppercorn is actually the best) the fries are crisped beautifully and fluffy inside and hot, the mash is hearty and satisfying and the spinach complinented the succulent steak perfectly.

The bottomless cola (plus other soft drinks) was cold and refreshing and for less than £20 each we walked back out into picturesque St. Benedicts Street happy in the heart, the belly and the wallet too.

Tallow is something worth experiencing for yourself, as soon as possible. It's absolutely amazing and I hope it goes on to have many...