The Pig and Butcher

Ok so 3 of us went here on Saturday night and I have to say the food was very good. My steak was beautifully cooked as was the venison. Our starters of goose rillette, ham hock and a black pudding and coddled egg salad were all delicious. The only very minor gripe I had with the flavour of anything was the salsa verde that came with my steak. I thought it was very over seasoned and so salty I couldn’t eat it, the others tried it and thought it was nice however so thats 2-1 against on that one. Okay, so I have given it a 4 and mostly deservedly so, but I have to say I thought the wine list was poor, we tried 2 different bottles one was £42ish a Rioja (the most expensive red they did) and the other was around the £32 mark, a French one. I have to say I wasn’t enamoured with either, the French one was your typical Vin du Plonk and the Rioja stuggled to raise the standard on a Campo Viejo, not impressed. The service was not great either, to start off it was a bit forced, pouring our wine for us is a bit much for what is essentially a pub. This service eventually disintegrated to us having to almost grab her as she rushed past. Finally and most tellingly is the price, this gastro pub is undoubtedly in Angel as I’m sure only here in the land of the Islingtonites could you charge these prices and still be booked up regularly. I don’t mind paying for quality food and lets not get this wrong they do what they do very well, but (and its a BIG but), what they do is very high end pub food, no more. The prices you pay for food in restaurants is determined as much by atmosphere as anything and I have to say they haven’t quite got it right to be charging what is pushing the limits outside of the fine dining experience. My 40 day aged Hereford ribeye steak I can only assume must’ve put that time to good use with a correspondence course, gained a qualification in order to have more marketable skills and command a higher price in the marketplace, because at £26.50 it must have more to offer than meets the eye. All in all it’s a lot better than a lot of supposed gastro pubs but they definitely are pushing their luck a little with the prices, to me if I’m going to have a splurge I could’ve topped up the £175 bill by £100 and gone to a Michelin star place where the wine would be poured for me (a pet hate of mine, can you tell?) but at least I’d be expecting such pretensions.