Girls Love Steak Too! The Lonsdale

I'll start this blog post by admitting that I'm slightly embarrassed because it is mainly about steak. Again.

Someone (male) said to me the other day 'You love your steak an awful lot for a girl'. Yes I do. But what does that even mean? Because I have mammaries that I am not supposed to like eating a healthy slice of big fat steakiness? Not this girl my friend. He of course tried to retract it with some kind of mumbled jumble about well 'girls normally like salads and stuff, you know, all that rabbit food, tofu, salad err'. He slowly stuttered into silence under the glare of my withering gaze.

'So I'm not girly then, is that it?' 'No no, of course not, you know what I mean' I obviously didnt and said words much to that effect before he uttered the singlemost worst thing he has ever said to me. "Well, it's not very ladylike Julianna." 6 days later and I am still barely speaking to him. So here it is for the record.

I will totter around in heels, much to my simultaneous pleasure at looking about 5 inches taller and chargrin that the price is the discomfort of considering every movement I make in them in terms of potential pain factors. I very rarely wear trousers (apparently another unladylike thing according to my prehistoric-era neanderthal buddy). I like the so-called girly foods such as salads, tofu, brown rice, soba noodles - in other words HEALTHY food that my dear little friend the oik doesnt seem to have got his head around. But I also like, scrap that, love a steak 'raw and wriggling' to quote Gollum and blue as can be. So there.

Which is why my Thursday night sojourn to The Lonsdale was really a very pleasant one. Myself and Anne-Laure from Tasty Diaries descended on Notting Hill's newly reopened bar/ restaurant/ club ready for a night of girly chatter, cocktails and steaks. And that's exactly what we got.




The Lonsdale achieves that rare combination of being as much of a bar as it is a restaurant. It's one of my pet hates for a place to be described as a bar and restaurant, only to find when you arrive that if you're not eating you're shoved onto a high stool at the front and treated with a disdain normally reserved for lepers. No such thing in existence here, you're encouraged to plump yourself down wherever you like (if you're clever, on the leather banquettes towards the back of the venue) and peruse the cocktail or food menus, whichever takes your fancy.

It wouldnt have been too hard to get rather steaming on the cocktails alone, which were worth the trip themselves. Expertly mixed, the list would take weeks to work through - you may regard this as a challenge. I'd be thoroughly interested to hear if anyone ever takes it up.

Overall the food was very good. The steaks at The Lonsdale are bought from Allens of Mayfair, the oldest of London's master butchers who are, confessedly a dab hand at the craft after 120 years of practice. While the Sirloin steak with mustard sauce was admittedly, a little on the tougher side than we would have liked, the filet with bearnaise was flawless: a moderately large slab of meat that would have shone even being eaten on its own but went perfectly with a few chips and a fresh tomato, basil and onion salad. Sorry kiddos, no photographic evidence of the actual steak..

To round it off, we got stuck into the Sticky Toffee Pudding and Creme Caramel, both of which were very tasty, but proved too much after the other two courses.
And then, off we tottered in our high heels, post cocktails, post giggles and post steak. So far, neither of us has grown a mystery beard or hairy feet as a consequence. So a message for my friend. Girls like steak too. Please drag yourself out of the 1800s, I love you too much to let you run around alienating the fillies as you have been known to call us with silliness such as that above...