St John’s Chop House; 4 Dec 09

It was a bit of a squeeze to get in because the St John’s Chop House, in common with most other restaurants this month, is heavily booked for Christmas parties. However get in we did and we had a fine table upstairs close to our own ‘private’ bar!

I remember the time when there was no a restaurant on the site where the Chop House now trades. In the mid 60s there was a grocer’s shop but it was then reinvented as an Italian restaurant: the Bistro Italo. This was a sister restaurant to theVino Bistro in Mill Road and both restaurants offered ‘sophisticated’ fare at affordable prices. I remember 3 course lunches for ten shillings and a dinner for 2 including wine for three quid.

There’s a gap in my knowledge of about 30 years but I do know that in the Mid 90s it was Michel’s, a rather up market establishment, then Prezzo, pasta and pizza, before becoming St John’s earlier this year.

Inside it is what you’d expect of a chop house: plain wood, cool lighting and, what has now become de rigeur, black uniformed serving staff. The service was good: efficient and attentive. And there’s an excellent wine list with most wines available by the glass.

And food? Starters are modest and heavily salad based. The salads where pleasantly aromatic. The menu of mains was maybe disappointing. It’s a chop house so where are the chops?  Fair enough there was a pork chop, pronounced excellent by one of our number, but no lamb chops. I’d have expected at least a Barnsley Chop.

5 out of our 6 were happy. My steak was excellent and the hand cut chips were impressively variable. Two sea bass were fine, the pork chop was good as noted above and the lady who took the suet dish pronounced it excellent. The disappointment was the goose: chewy and dry. Perhaps an aberration.

The desert menu is very heavy and certainly after a suet pudding you can’t handle a toffee pudding. Perhaps the next version could be a little lighter. But there is a real coffee machine and the espresso was just fine. £30 a head, including service, is not a bad deal.