Review: Quality Chop House, Shoreditch

We had one of those great but pointless discussions about “what is Modern British cuisine?” and you’ll be glad to hear I’m not going to bore you with my arguments or our (lack of) conclusions. Although I think we did conclude that the Quality Chop House is still genuinely Traditional British, just with some useful 21st century expectations thrown in to make it truly awesome

It’s certainly a traditional dining room, being grade II listed and seating you on wooden benches in wooden booths that have quite possibly been here for the whole of the place’s 150 year history. Ambiance: big tick. Food? Bigger tick.

Pig head croquettes are spiffy, two generous cubes with a good pepper mayo, impossible not to love. Our other snack is a mahoosive bowl of soft whipped cod roe with a powerful charcoal smoky flavour, really really hard to stop eating. But we need to because the starters are grand.

My slab of game terrine is excellent, studded with pistachios and sour cherries. The marinated cranberries with it are a perfect relish. It’s a mighty slab. Maureen’s crab rarebit is an odd beast. Why would a sturdy cheesy rarebit on a hunk of sourdough want to be topped with white Brixham crab? And why would you want South-East Asian inspired flavours of peanut, cucumber and curry in there? It should have been a car crash, but they all miraculously swerved each other and swooped off in formation like the Red Arrows. I may have mixed metaphors there. It was basically delicious.

I couldn’t stop gawping at my roast pheasant. It was just the perfect dish, for the restaurant and for the cold rainy Christmas-is-coming night outside. The roast breast, pink and full-flavoured. The parfait liver, silky and irony. Perched on dripping-fried bread. The tiny pan full of deeply flavoured mince and parmesan foam. The bread sauce. The game chips. The good gravy and cranberry sauce. Every element fairly perfect and an absolute feast.

Maureen’s ox cheek with XO sauce served on a rich olive oil mash was no slacker, the rich meat given a great overdose of umami and heat by the XO. To be fair, the sheer power of the dish became a bit much over the long haul. And the portions at the Chop House are generous from start to finish! There was no hope of trying pudding, alas.

It’s probably £40 for three courses at the Quality Chop House, and I think that’s bang on the money for the wonderful cooking and generosity of plating. We found plenty of good wines by the glass, and started with a couple of very excellent cocktails. If it wasn’t at the wrong end of London, the QCH would be an instant local favourite of mine.