Review: Meat at the Parish, Windsor

Meat at the Parish is a steak restaurant right in the middle of Windsor, within sight of the castle. At lunchtime on Saturday it was pretty quiet – fair to assume most tourists don’t think of steak for lunch. But hey, we certainly had good service. Inside the decor is rather non-descript dark and modern, comfortable for a long lunch.

My starter of beetroot salad and goat cheese was nicely presented and the beet slices perfectly seasoned, albeit the goat cheese wasn’t particularly special. Maureen had an onion “blossom” – a big onion, sliced into slivers, floured and deep-fried – with spicy mayo to dip into. I’m a big fan of fried onion, and with the spicy mayo it was a great snack.

We shared a ribeye steak for main, neither of us wanting a whole 350g steak to ourselves, but that gave us the opportunity to add a few sides: roast garlic cloves, bone marrow, heritage tomato salad and fries. Oh, and a peppercorn sauce, which was pleasant but needed more green peppercorn tang and oomph. The steak was middling, I’ve certainly had less chewy ribeye, though it was correctly cooked to medium-rare with nice char lines. Good fries, really enjoyed the soft cloves of roast garlic with the steak, but the tomato salad was (no surprise in England in March) a bit flavourless.

We finished up with a nice pair of sorbets: honeydew melon and coconut. If you have steak you’ll pay around £50-60 for three courses before drinks, if you pick a different main it’ll be £40-50. For the quality I think this is steep, so I’m probably going to go three doors down to A La Russe for dinner in Windsor.