Emma Johnson gets off to a bad start at Marco Pierre White’s Steakhouse and Grill

YOU like steak, you should review Marco Pierre White’s new place,” came the comment. It is fair to say that my reputation as a carnivore precedes me in our office.

Like all good legends, though, it is not strictly true.

I rarely eat red meat at home, my husband and I are a grilled chicken and vegetables kind of couple. It is just that, if I am going out to dinner, I want something expensive, tasty and sinful not the boring diet dishes I exist on the rest of the time. In for a penny in for a pound of calories and all that.

So, it was in the interests of foodie journalism that my husband and I made our way to the Hell’s Kitchen star’s restaurant which opened at Hotel Indigo last year.

I must confess it was not my first visit to the eaterie. I enjoyed a wonderful lunch there a few months back. However, on that occasion, I had opted for bangers and mash – it was fabulous but hardly the dish on which to judge a steakhouse headed up by a Michelin-star winning chef.

For the purposes of this review, only a dead cow on a plate would suffice.

They are funny things, hotel restaurants. In my experience, they go one of two ways. They are either beautifully designed affairs helmed by celebrity cooks or glorified canteens.

Happily, Marco’s place is the former. Situated on the ground floor at the back of the hotel, it is bright and airy with a sunshine yellow colour scheme that instantly perks you up. And, while Marco may not actually be in the kitchen, his presence is certainly felt thanks to the giant black and white portraits of the fiery chef which adorn the restaurant walls.

On our visit, there were two menus available, the à la carte and table d’hote (available Monday-Thursday 6pm-10pm, two courses £21.50/three courses £25.00).

With five starters and four mains, plus an array of desserts, I couldn’t fault the table d’hote menu and it was certainly good value.

However, I opted for dishes from the à la carte. After coming very close to ordering the prawn cocktail (£9) for the sheer retro thrill of it, to start I chose the potted duck with prunes d'agen and toasted sourdough £7.50.

It arrived looking pretty, the duck in a traditional-style jam jar with two small slices of bread on the side and an abundance of lamb’s leaf type greens.

Sadly, it looked better than it tasted. Because, aside from the prune paste on top which tasted, well, of prunes, the dish didn’t taste much of anything.

Except perhaps carrots. Largely because it contained a lot of carrots. Which was a surprise since there had been no mention whatsoever of carrots on the menu. Also, there was nowhere near enough bread to go with it (why do restaurants always do that?). However, the waitress happily supplied me with more.

My wine choice was considerably more of a hit than my food. The Flagstone Word of Mouth South African viognier (£30) was light yet creamy and went down rather too easily.

Had it not been a Thursday, another bottle would have been on the cards.

My husband had no complaints about his starter. He described the ham hock as nicely salty, textured and filling. Interestingly, that also had a lot of carrots in which were not flagged up in advance.

So, onto the mains. The Steakhouse offers five beef dishes: 8oz fillet steak (£27), 10oz rib eye (£22.50), 16oz T-bone (£28) and a 10oz sirloin (£24.50).

I went for the rib eye which, although fattier than fillet or sirloin, tends to have more flavour.

All of the restaurant’s beef is 28-day aged and comes garnished with grilled beef tomato, onion rings and chips cooked in beef dripping, with a choice of bearnaise or pepper sauce at an additional cost of £3.

I opted for bearnaise. And it was very good.

The chips were fabulous. Huge big slightly soft blocks of potato with a slightly sweet taste which – I know it’s a cliche – tasted just like my mum’s.

Sadly, the steak was – at the risk of one of Marco’s famous ear-bashings – not nearly as good as I had been hoping. It was cooked just right to my medium rare specification and bursting with flavour, but even for a rib eye it had a lot of fat in it and was actually hard to chew in places.

My husband’s roast rump of lamb, à la dijonnaise with pomme dauphinois (£16.50) was better. The lamb was not as pink as the waitress suggested, but it was juicy and tender and the dauphinois rich and buttery.

The side dish of creamed cabbage and bacon (£3) was good, too. It’s one of my own signature dishes and I definitely have competition.

After all that meat, we needed something super sweet and desserts don’t come much sweeter than sticky toffee pudding so we ordered two.

It was faultless. Moist and fluffy and dripping in toffee sauce. The waitress even added a blob of ice cream at our request.

The pudding definitely lifted the meal but, following such a good experience on my last visit, I couldn’t help leaving the Steakhouse feeling a little disappointed this time.

My dinner was hardly Hellish but I would expect more from such a Devil of a cook.