Butler's Wharf Chop House: Southwark, Monday September 19th, 2011

After the weekend of indulgence in celebrating the wife's 30th, another meal out wasn't really what I had in mind come Monday of the new week. However, her auntie was in London as part of a corporate holiday and so it seemed only fair that we at least say hello and spend a little time with a family member who had travelled over from Taiwan.

In the event, another dinner it was. Butler's Wharf Chop House is part of the D&D Group, which controls a hefty number of London restaurants, the most notable being Launceston Place. The Chop House is less of a red letter restaurant than many of their establishments, but it does have the marketable value of being within walking distance of the London Dungeon and Tower Bridge, whilst also being on the Thames's south bank.

Tourists will flock to this kind of place because it purports to be the kind of British, fish'n'chips-style affair that people seem to come to London for. Of course, the speciality here is steak, but the premise and the attraction for the hordes is clear.

It was a slightly surreal experience, being on a table surrounded by Taiwanese insurance workers and their most important clients, but as I've found with almost all Taiwanese people I have met, they were courteous, welcoming and friendly. Generous too: we took home a huge bagful of seasonal Taiwanese goodies. The language barrier did not prove to be much of a hindrance, with the wife translating as ever.

The group was offered a minimal-choice set menu - understandably, given the number of tables the party were occupying - which was a fairly standard set of the restaurant's safer choices. The starter was a reasonable onion soup which was a  little too sweet but was finished fairly easily. Main course was naturally a steak. It came with chips and some sauce (I asked specifically for bearnaise) and the whole thing smacked of averageness. Cheesecake for dessert was forgettable: bland and improperly combined.

I would not recommend Butler's Wharf Chophouse as a place worth trying simply because it really is such a middling restaurant - at best. If you're in the area you could do a lot worse but it's never somewhere you should make an effort to be. The tourist market is certainly the best business-related part of the restaurant, but worryingly it's the only part of this place I can see being of any worth at all.

Butler's Wharf Chophouse