Where: 2-3 West Smithfield (between Barbican and Farringdon)
The Scene: Hopping after work drink spot with 2-4-1 cocktails until 8, live music in the bar and chic decor
Delight: 25% off the food bill and lively atmosphere
Disappointment: over priced pub food
We both arrived early for our reservation so we decided to take advantage of some of their drink specials in the bar first. The 2-4-1 cocktails were pretty weak but still contained some alcohol and at £7.50 for 2 it's not a bad price for the area. They only had 2 beers on tap, Guinness and Becks, which was a little lame, but they were rocking bottles of Boston's Sam Adam's Lager, which I didn't get but still appreciated.
I was absolutely loving the decor of the bar and restaurant and the vibe of the place was really great as well. A decent after work crowd but not too busy and by 7:30 they had a solo guitarist playing acoustic covers of Lady Gaga's bad romance!
When we moved to the restaurant it was pretty dead, but then again we were dining pretty early. We ordered the garlic bread starter which was literally toasted hamburger buns with a cup of melted butter and a head of garlic. DIY garlic bread if you will. When you have to assemble your own food, I get a little ticked (why am I eating out then?) but this was a little ridiculous because who wants to eat whole cloves of garlic and the starter did not come with a garlic press.
After a few cocktails and a very average starter I was craving something familiar; some chips. I went for the scampi and chips and the mister went for the Sirloin steak. The Smithfield Bar & Grill boasted a 28 day aging process on their beef so it seemed like a promising order for the mister. The steak that came did not look like a sirloin cut (or at least not a sirloin cut you would get in the US) but the mister said it was tasty.
My meal was good. You really can't go wrong with scampi and chips. The scampi was priced at £17 which I would have considered a bit of a rip off had we not been getting the 25% discount, but again these are probably reasonable prices for central London.
I probably wouldn't go out of my way to make it back to Smithfield's Bar & Grill, but if I was in the neighborhood I might drop in for a drink.
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