Macellaio RC

How… how have I not already done a review of Macellaio?! I spend half my life there…
First of all, I’d recommend always booking a table — it’s often packed to the rafters, and rightly so.
The staff are all wonderful people. They’re really informative, helpful and a little bit cheeky! They do a mean Negroni, which is great if you’re waiting for a table, or even just whilst you’re perusing the adorable menus which come in newspaper format. The restaurant has a butchers counter at the front and you can see (and pick) which meat you want for your meal. The steaks are sublime, perfectly cooked and the staff can help you decide which size you need. Also, shout out to the battuta starter, which is an Italian steak tartare. I dream of that dish.
I almost forgot — as well as having an excellent wine list, they also offer BYOB (with a corkage fee). Top tip — head to Sampler before you go to Macellaio and pick out a bottle or three.
This place is bloody brilliant.

We came here for my husband’s 30^th birthday! He wanted steak for his bday meal, and our friend recommended this place. When you first walk in, you are greeted with their fresh meat in the front of the restaurant. And while waiting for our table, we watched the guys preparing beef tartare, carpaccio, butchering meat, and such… Drooling begins haha
We made reservation for 8:30pm but our table was not ready when we arrived, so they say is at the bar while setting our table. We ordered carpaccio and mozzarella for appetizer, t-​bone for 2, a side dish and gnocchi for mains, 2 bottles of wine (for 3 of us) and tiramisu for dessert. Good was amazing!!! Meat was really fresh and the steak was cooked to perfection! The gnocchi was very good too. We had a great meal and the check came up to be about £200 for the 3 of us for very good quality food. Definitely worth coming if you like steak.

We went here because of the Unilocal reviews and it right down the street from our hotel. It was a very interesting restaurant with a lot of visual appeal. The staff were very friendly and efficient.
The meal was all about the meat and they did a very good job of preparing our steak. We are visitors to London but did not feel like this was a tourist trap of any sort. It appeared that most of the patrons were locals.
We will be sure to visit this place again when we return to London!

Best fiorentina in town! It has a real Italian taste, with no dressing (just the Italian way)
Good selection of wine
Tartare is definitely worth trying
Atmosphere is great too

Our family had a very nice meal here. We called ahead for reservations and the staff was very pleasant and helpful. The waitress made some great suggestions on starter and steak. The steaks sourced from Piedmonte region of Italy and are dry aged. We had a bone-​in ribeye and it was excellent. The bartender also made a great suggestion on a medium bodied redblend from Tuscany. Overall, we had a nice meal and enjoyed the atmosphere and great service from the attentive staff. Highly recommend.

Really enjoyed this restaurant. I only popped in for a simple meal and had the steak tartare (seasoned to perfection) and a side of spinach (also done just right). To this I added a glass of Barbera Bianco which was a good choice off an interesting wine list. The staff were friendly and the atmosphere low key. It would be good to go back and try one of their larger choices. Maybe next time I am in London.

Omg the best steak place in London. You wouldnt realise it is a steak place by looking from the outside. The place and food are amazing. Staff are very friendly and helpful. Try the steak, costata and the cheese (that looks like Mozarella cheese but it is not, it is creamier and soooo goood!). Plus wine!

If you like fresh perfect meat — it’s your place for sure! Here you can choose a piece of meat you want to be cooked and you can choose between two different types of steak of Florentine! Delicious cuisine!
And there is a perfect wine list selected for any type of meat you choose.

Butcher shop meets (and meats!) neighbourhood Italian restaurant in this popular eatery on Old Brompton Road.
From the outside it looks like an unassuming butcher shop with large cuts of meat hanging in the window, however the red leather sofa outside gives away that inside is quite a trendy hangout. Small inside space of white and red tile and butcher counter complete with the butcher cutting the meat while tartare dishes being prepared, and all fresh off the chopping block. High wooden tables are cramped and close together making the most of every inch of space. Music is playing and on a Saturday night this place is quite the hip hangout. But probably the best sign that this is a place worth eating at is that Italians of all ages were eating here as well.
Things did get off to a rocky start, mainly due to our reservation. We booked our table for 10:15pm as that was all that was left on that Saturday night. We go, on time and we are told our table is still not available as the prior party was finishing up. So we waited, outside on the pavement (with the smokers) as it is way to cramped and crowded inside to wait there. And we waited… and waited… over ½ an hour for them to honour our booking and give us our table! To be honest if I hadn’t been with friends I would have left.
However once seated and food on the table things shifted for the better. The food was delicious and the quality of the meat was outstanding. As for the trimmings I especially enjoyed the Fagioli beans that were like butter, and the livers were scrumptious. We finished off with the house Tiramisu which was their own recipe and light and fluffy. To top it all off the wine choices were exciting, varied, and not your run of the mill.
Very enjoyable but crowded and cramped. Prepare yourself for waiting and being pushed around a bit, but once you taste the goods you will find it is worth it all in the end. Besides you can never go wrong with Italians taking care of you.

Do you like steak? Was that a rhetorical question?
My wife suggested this place for a steak dinner. I was skeptical that a steak restaurant in south ken would be as good as a place like Goodmans. That thought immediately disappeared when we walked to the restaurant and saw all of the steak hanging in the window.
The staff were really attentive and really passionate about their food. Since our reservation was at 7:30pm the restaurant was a bit quiet so had the chance to speak to the man behind the meat counter. He gave an indepth talk about where their meat was sourced from and that they age their meat for 6 weeks.
We had the carpaccio meat sharing plate. The steak tartare was great but equally as good was the burrata cheese. The t-​bone steak which we got weighed in just under 1kg. The fillet portion of the t-​bone was melt in your mouth goodness. #MELTINYOURMOUTH It was delicious. The rock salt on the steak could have been a lot more maybe next time we’ll get the extra sauce with the steak.
Service was great as they were all happy and friendly. Adding to the drama of dinner theatre, the way they brought out the steak knives and steak itself was something fun to see in a restaurant.
We had reservations, it’s recommended to make a reservation… even on a Wednesday.

So you walk in the restaurant past a guy with a huge meat cleaver standing behind a display case of huge chunks of meat. Then this charming and cute server stops over, so you act clueless about how the whole thing works (because you are) and she assists you and provides recommendations. She is so charming that you just nod and say «yes, sounds good.» Then she takes your hand and leads you to the butcher, who literally smashes the cleaver into the meat to slice you a 2 inch thick T-​bone. At this point, I’m wondering if I’m just a sucker for the server’s charms. But, next thing you know you are drinking amazing wine, eating one of the best steaks ever, sampling some excellent fried potatoes, and having a great time.

Delicious steak at affordable prices. Maxela is a must-​visit for every steak lover.
Maxela, «The Italian Butchery with Tables», is a little steakhouse not far from South Kensington station in South West London. Since the tube strikes in early 2014, I began walking to work about once a week. And on the way, I often walked past Maxela — it looked like a nice place, but it took me a few months to make it there for dinner.
It is a little bit embarrassing, but at first I missed Maxela by one door and went into the neighbouring restaurant. Not a bad place either, but as soon as I noticed it, I decided to get a starter and then make a move. On my second attempt, I walked through the right door.
From the outside, Maxela looks a bit like a butcher shop, and initially I thought this is a deli and the restaurant is next door. But do not let the meat on display fool you, behind the door is a lovely little steakhouse, not just a butcher shop.
Immediately, I was approached by a very friendly waitress with a beautiful smile. She almost had to send me away because they were quite busy, but I guess after I made a sad face, she gave the restaurant a second look and found me a place. I had to share the table with a Canadian guy and a couple, but that was perfectly fine, and now I think sharing a table matches the overall atmosphere of this tiny meat paradise very well.
I skipped the starters and went straight into the main menu. Many dishes sounded delicious and it was difficult to decide, but at the end I went with a sliced Fassone beef steak with caramelised pears and aged balsamic vinegar. I combined the steak with a fruity red Montepulciano and french fries.
Not long after I ordered, a waiter brought my food. It looked beautiful. The french fries were salty, dark and crispy, I think skin-​on. No question, the star of the evening was the heavenly Fassone beef steak. It was cooked medium-​rare and spiced perfectly. The steak was full of flavour and I really liked the combination with caramelised pears, which were a nice contrast to the steak and added a light freshness to the dish.
After finishing my steak, I ordered «latte dolce fritto» or «fried sweet milk». To be honest, I had no idea what this meant, but when the waitress recommended it with her winning smile, I could not resist — and I did not regret this decision. The dessert was delicious, yet not very heavy and some of the fritters were even filled with Nutella.
Overall, I think Maxela is undoubtedly one of the best steakhouses in London. The place has a great, relaxed, friendly and personal atmosphere. At the counter right next to the entrance you can see how the meat is cut, which just adds to the excitement. Maxela feels like a honest and authentic restaurant, and most importantly, the steak tastes excellent. I cannot recommend Maxela in South Kensington highly enough.

Great steak. Small shop front but worth going in and getting a table in the back.

Very good meat, wide selection of cooked and uncooked meat under the Italian tradition,
Also had a very good wine here!
quite good price /​quality ratio and nice relaxed atmosphere, good for weeknight dinners

The meat at Maxela is melt-​in-​your-​mouth deeeelicious. Sadly, the service isn’t so heavenly! A friend and I visited Maxela a bit earlier than the normal dinner crowd so we were the only diners at the restaurant for at least 20 – 30 mins. which is why it was a bit frustrating that we had to wave our waiter over to order a bottle of wine. Three different bottles of white wine are on the menu, but they were out of stock on the two reasonably priced options. After ordering, our server never stopped by to check on us after delivering our super tasty Tagliere Misto and we had to flag him down for another basket of bread.
Finally, what’s up with the music at this place? 80’s love ballads? I don’t think I’ve heard Toni Braxton, Michael Bolton or Wind Beneath my Wings in at least 20 years!

simple menu, good quality meat, fresh produce and a very Italian feel! This has become my favourite place in London now! The steak is outstanding!

I have since returned to Maxela two times since my review. I think I went on a bad day the first time because the quality of the sides has improved. The quality of the meat was always excellent but I thought the portions were a bit small. For whatever reason, I think I just received a smaller portion the first time. I have tried the Tagliate di Fassone and the entrecôte — both were great. Not huge or even large portions, but reasonable. Finally, I have also tried the hamburger. The meat is clearly a cut above Byrons or GBK and at 8.50 or 9.00 — it is the same price. Definitely worth checking out!

Just finished a wonderful meal. My husband and I split an appetizer and one of the imported steaks with spinach and canellini beans as sides. Such wonderful flavors! The tiramisu was superb too. We’re only in London for a few days. But we may well return to Maxela before we leave.

First of all let’s get the pronunciation right: Maxela is pronounced ‘Mah-​je-​lah’, which means ‘butchers’ in Ligurian dialect.
Restaurants seem to sprout up overnight like mushrooms after rainfall. Having heard nothing about this opening, I drove by this place last week just after it opened. The ‘butcher’s with tables’ piqued my interest. I realised I had seen a similar restaurant in Milan. So I booked.
This is a butcher’s shop-​cum-​restaurant and is the London outpost of an Italian chain of restaurants with branches in in quite a few cities in Italy. You walk in past the butcher’s counter brimming with beautiful steaks, sausages and hams, into the restaurant. There is no menu currently listed on its website but, from memory, they have a couple of soups (minestrone being one of them), two pastas (trofie al pesto and pansotti in walnut sauce), lots of cold cuts and ‘crudi’ (raw meat, so classic tartares, battute and carpacci), a wide selection of steaks for which you choose cut and weight and ‘dressing’ (either Maxela-​style with olive oil and rock salt or old-​style with olive oil, garlic and rosemary), and burgers.
We had minestrone and trofie al pesto to start. The trofie were THE best pasta with pesto I have had outside of Italy. Good bite to the pasta which was dressed in just the right amount of, what appeared to be, hand-​pounded pesto. The manager said they fly the trofie and pesto in from Genova, which explains the high quality. We ordered an 800g Maxela-​style costata (rib of beef) to share for mains, along with grilled vegetables and homemade crisps. The steak was served ‘tagliata’ style on a cast iron hot plate. It was a splendid piece of meat: nice brown crust on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside, and with oh so much flavour! I don’t know where they source their meat from (I vaguely remember reading that they fly it in from Piemonte but I could be completely off the mark) but it was one of the best steaks I’ve had in London. The homemade crisps were very nice and not greasy at all; the grilled veg was a platter of aubergines rounds, courgettes and carrots sliced lengthways. Aubergine used to soak up the meat juices from the steak — heaven!
We had a glass of the house red each. Generous portion, nice enough. I cannot remember what it was save to say it was an Umbrian red.
No room for dessert but listed on the menu were fried milk fritters with nutella, tiramisu’, chocolate torte, and fresh pineapple. The Italians believe that eating pineapple after steak aids digestion and breakdown of the meat.
For the quality of food and the amount we ate I would say the bill was reasonable. I will ‘do an Arnie’ on this place for sure!