The Grill On the Market

The T Bone steak was rather weak, seasoning was very underwhelming, as was the actual flavours which lacked any real meaty flavours. The fillet part was decent at best while the sirloin part was served pink, but still tasted fairly chewy, which show the quality of the cut is not quite up there with the very best. I took up the advantage of the 50% off winter offer, for me it wasn’t really worth it if I had to pay the full price, there are simply many better steak joints out there in London at the similar price tag.

Great atmosphere! Steak was juicy and tender as well as well seasoned. A decent steakhouse at a fairly average price tag. I came for Friday dinner. The restaurant is not busy but the bar is. After having steak you can move to the bar for some chit chat.

The first thing you notice on entering the restaurant is the music; it’s live. It creates an awesome atmosphere throughout; it’s classy yet relaxed, welcoming yet it feels exclusive.
A friend and I went mid-​week and the place was still packed, a good sign for the quality of what we were about to experience. The Grill is separated on two levels, the entrance level encompassing a bar and the second, the dine-​in restaurant. It’s pull of busy city workers, toasting to a successful/​long day and friends, like us, sitting down for a pre-​dinner cocktail. There’s also a separate private dining area that can cater for up to 20 guests.
The Grill on the Market is part of the Blackhouse chain where ‘solid, honest and simple proper food’ is the daily mantra.
We focus on no nonsense food; specialising in wholesome ingredients, mixing distinctive textures and flavours that just work together, offering a mix of innovative dishes with comfortable favourites.
Steak is their bread and butter; it’s what they are known for and know how to do it well. The restaurants prime location opposite Smithfields meat market also doesn’t go a miss.
We ate three amazing courses and drank bottle of red wine with our main, bookended by more cocktails and coffee. For starters we had chicken satay and mussels with a side of garlic rub bread, followed by an imposing Chateaubriand.
I feel I need to give the main it’s own shout out here. JUST WOW. I only ever really have steak when I’m dining out, due to my own inability to cook it well at home. This simply cemented why I do it. I have never eaten anything like this before. You buy the Chateaubriand as a meal for two (£57.50), and it comes with two portions of home-​cut chips (served in charming mini frying baskets), French beans and a Béarnaise sauce. We also had a side of garlic king prawns. The meat was superb, the chips were seasoned to perfection, the beans added a great crunch and the Béarnaise was rich and creamy.
Desert consisted of a warm chocolate fudge cake and a sticky toffee pudding, both delightful, though perhaps too rich a choice after the first two courses. We were stuffed, uncomfortably so, but it was so worth it.
Price wise, The Grill on the Market sits the higher end of the London average, but it isn’t expensive. Cocktails average around £7, a solid bottle of win for £30 while starters are £5−10 and mains range from £12 burgers to £75 Porterhouse T-​bone. The steak is obviously the most expensive, but it’s granted because it’s just so damn good.
Yes, the food is simple, comfortable as they say, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t special. The quality of the produce, the amazing atmosphere and the friendly staff make an evening at The Grill well worth the price tag. This is definitely my go-​to choice for the Barbican area, just a short walk for any of the local tubes.
UPDATE: Some awesome news! You can now get membership to the Grill on the Market (for free) simply by signing up (contact the restaurant for more info) which entitles you to mega discounts on food, up to 50% some nights!
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London is filled with restaurants of all cuisines — you can find everything from thai and indian through to ethiopian or moroccan — but sometimes you just can’t beat a bit of British.
British cooking to me means one thing. Meat. I love big, comforting plates of honest food — whether that comes in the form of beef, pork, lamb or chicken. I’m a meat & veg girl through and through so when I was recently invited down to The Grill on the Market, near Smithfields market — one look at the menu and I knew I’d love it.
Grill on the Market is a restaurant from the Blackhouse group. They’ve got restaurants across the country in Chester, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester and the site at Smithfeilds market is its only London outpost. Blackhouse are all about no-​nonsense, honest and simple cooking and that’s exactly what they serve up.
We wanted to make sure we tried as much of the menu as possible so we ordered the Blackhouse Sharing Plate (£15.75) which allows you to try four starter dishes for a very reasonable price.
Honey glazed chicken skewers, salt and pepper calamari, BBQ ribs and baked sweet potato wedges. All served withthree dips — BBQ, Aioli and a mint & coriander crème fraîche.
The ribs had that perfect fall-​off-​the-​bone, melt-​in-​the-​mouth texture and the calamari — oh the calamari…
Squid has a tendency to be cooked to the point of tasting like rubber in lots of places but GoTM got it just right. Perfectly cooked in a light batter which sung when dunked in the garlic-​y mayonnaise.
I also spied Scottish mussels on the menu and couldn’t resist ordering a bowl to share (I’m greedy, remember people).
There’s a choice of two sauces so we went with the cream and white wine option (£7.75) which was gorgeous — if a touch under seasoned, but a good squeeze from the lemon provided on our sharing platter totally took it up a gear.
Make sure you order some bread as the sauce is just dying to be mopped up once you’ve eaten the mussels. I even drained the whole bowl with a spoon once the bread was gone…
For main courses we both went for rib-​eyes. Rib-​eye steak is by far my favourite cut — it’s covered in fatty marbling which creates a rich, beefy flavour. This cut of steak is best medium-​rare as it allows the fat to melt slightly and all the flavour to be absorbed — when cooked right, it tastes incredible.
All the steaks at Grill on the Market are served with a choice of baked potato, home-​cut chips or mash. We both very predictably went for steak and home-​cut chips — because diets are not designed for date-​night.
Tom kept it fancy by adding a skewer of garlic king prawns (£5) to go with his steak and I chose a Béarnaise sauce (£2.25), which tasted so good I could have drank it straight from the jug. (I didn’t but you know I totally would’ve)
Side orders of roasted field mushrooms (£3.25), green vegetables (£3.75) and onion rings (£3) set off our meal perfectly.
By this point we’d eaten a lot of food. But I couldn’t leave without pudding. and things definitely kicked up a gear when it came to desserts.
Sticky Toffee Pudding and Pavlova are my favourite desserts (not counting Banoffee Pie of course) and here they both were on the menu. It took very little persuasion to get Tom to share both with me… along with a bottle of Picpoul (£26).
If you go, I urge you to order the sticky toffee… served piping hot with cold vanilla ice cream it’s gooey, sticky, warm and absolutely delicious. I almost wrestled Tom out the way so I could get a bite.
The raspberry pavlova (£6.75) also did not disappoint. A GIANT meringue stuffed with fresh cream, raspberries, cherries and fruit couli. Wow. Just wow. I would definitely recommend heading to Grill on the Market if you’re looking for somewhere lively and affordable to have dinner — it would also be great for drinks after work if you’re in the area. We were there on a Friday night and they had live music in the form of a pianist playing all my favourite 80s motown songs — the perfect setting for a brilliant evening.
Big thank you to Kamil for arranging our dinner for us and to our waitor Joe for looking after us brilliantly on the night!

I’ve only been into the bar here but I’m already sold on the place. I’m scolding myself for always walking towards Liverpool Street or staying around Bank for after-​work drinks, when this place is just a ten minute walk from my office and you can get two-​for-​one cocktails from 5 to 7pm. Tasty, not-​too-​sweet, not-​too-​weak cocktails from an extensive menu as well. Which makes for two very happy hours indeed!
There’s room to grab a seat even on a Friday with a mix of low sofas and high bar chairs, and the décor is welcoming albeit not particularly distinctive or memorable. The music forces you to speak a notch or two louder than usual, but still well shy of being at shouting levels. The only slightly odd thing is the front-​of-​house for the restaurant section hidden at the back stands behind a desk in the middle of the bar area which usually causes confusion when people enter expecting to find a restaurant; I’ll have to come back to try the food methinks.
Overall it’s a very solid four star drinks stop, but the barman last week earned them a fifth last week in my book — I paid for two cocktails for £8 with a £20 note and he forgot to bring me change. He was very apologetic once I reminded him, and as my friend and I got up to leave later he offered us both a jagermeister shot to say sorry for his mistake. This was surprisingly ok tasting (being freezing cold and not marred by red bull) and promptly sent us both into girly giggles just in time for the posh dinner we were headed to! Now I realise this makes me sound like an alcoholic pushover… but hey, I appreciated the gesture and it was a nice way to show that any customer’s lasting opinion of their bar is important to them. Well I was convinced anyway!

The Grill on the Market was just around the corner from our hotel in London and we made use of the 50% offer with my Blackhouse group card. It looked very quiet when we first walked in, but this is was just the bar.
The restaurant is at the back and up a few steps, I loved the look of the place, it was intimate and had a great buzz to the place.
Sadly we had just missed the 241 happy hour on the cocktails. I had the Mussels which were cooked in a curry sauce which tasted amazing and had the Steak Fajitas for the main which was great too!
Overall a fantastic meal served by a great waiter. I look forward to returning to this great restaurant again!

We had our last meal in London here. It was right down the street from our apartment. Nice atmosphere, and good selection of beer and wine. The men had steaks; both were well-​cooked, juicy and flavorful. My sea bass had wonderfully crispy skin and a nice teriyaki glaze. My daughter had chicken fajitas and she enjoyed them. Both kids inhaled the fudge cake. Service was pleasant, but a bit slow. All in all, a really nice way to end our week.

Very good French fries! And the sweet potatoes are the best!!!
Burgers are ok! But not my favorite
Nice location and great people

Came here on Saturday. Food was great and 40% off with another website. Would definitely visit again. Huge choice.

The Grill on the Market has been on my list to try ever since I missed the Unilocal event there. As the name implies, it’s right on the edge of Smithfield Market (where else would you site a meat-​centric place?). The entry is set up as a bar/​bistro with some small tables and booths but has plenty of standing room for the post-​work crowd while the rear opens up into a more formal sit down restaurant. The staff are pretty friendly and prices are quite reasonable.
Given the grill-​focused nature of the place, it seemed wrong not to get a steak. I opted for a small (225g) ribeye for £16 which comes with a side of either chips, baked potato, or buttery mash. I opted for the chips (naturally) which were pretty damn good. Thickly cut with crispy skins and fluffy insides, they were everything you could ask for in a chip. The steak itself was grilled nicely to my requested medium rare with plenty of juicy flavours to enjoy. My main issue was the charcoally crunch to the exterior which beyond pleasantly smoky to «you really should clean the BBQ». Like a little grit in your mussels, it’s not a deal breaker but just a bit annoying.
The foie gras starter deserves a bit of a shoutout for being truly delicious. The foie gras was seared perfectly to cook it just enough to make it silky without deteriorating into a ball of greasy fat. The garnish of spiced rhubarb and gingerbread had just enough tangy bite to cut through the richness and a novel warming ginger flavour which I found very appealing.
Alex’s steak sandwich and asparagus soup (creamy, but not too creamy) looked and tasted like a pretty good lunch, but it was not steak and therefore inferior.
For £16, the steak and chips were quite good value if they can just tweak the grill. Cocktails were are £8 which seems on par with London in general and its immediate competition. I’d be happy to go back if I’m in the area or just craving an affordable steak.

I have been to Grill on the Market twice for team outings — so keeping in mind we were both times relatively big groups.
Although I wanted to like this place, I found it a bit snooty. And relatively expensive for the quality of the food you get. Again, please note I didn’t eat their steak — that seems to be what they are good for.
The atmosphere tries to be cosy, but I found it too dark and cold.
And yes, I am a pain when it comes to service. But if there is something that grinds my nerves about as much as bad service? It’s over service that is aimed at making you spend always more. More bread? Here, pay for it? Water? Oh, let me get you some Evian.
So yes, my experience at this venue was pretty average, and not out of this world. Not the kind of place I would go back to on my own accord. (Unless I tried the steak next time?)

Wow.
I went here in a group; none of us had been before but it was unanimously loved by everyone.
Apart from some cheeky upselling at the bar where they encouraged everyone who walked in to start a bar tab, the service was great, to the point that they give you a tablet to fill in an online survey at the end of your meal.
My soup starter was delicious, my main course excellent (and everyone else around my table was really pleased with theirs) and the only reason I’m dropping a star is because my sticky toffee pudding wasn’t very nice at the end. It had an odd texture and for the price of it I expected better.
Still, I will happily visit this place again. Well done guys :)

Stopped by for a petite ribeye with fries. The ribeye was super chewy and did not have a nice char. It also could have been better seasoned. The fries were mostly soggy and I had to pick around for the crispy ones. I say skip this place unless you just want to grab a drink.

Happy hour drinks — Tick
Delicious food — Tick
Friendly staff — Tick!
I have absolutely no complaints about The Grill on the Market! Great dinner and atmosphere and a special treat if you sign up to their club (do it now!). We came here on a Saturday night at 6pm so we could take advantage on the happy hour (goes until 7pm). I ordered the corn-​fed chicken breast & beetroot risotto which was an excellent combination and finished off with a sticky toffee pudding. Both amazing and worth every last calorie. Through out the night the about three different staff members came over to help us and generally just to chat, they were great! Even the manager came over and was genuinely making an effort to greet all of his customers. We also ordered a number of different flavoured cocktails recommended to us by the bar tenders and each was unique and delicious in their own individual ways, they also didn’t hold back on the spirits which can often happen during happy hour! Will definitely be returning ASAP as a special place to take friends I want to impress.

Finding steak done to perfection in London is a challenge. Luckily, I found a beautifully seared to perfection sirloin steak at The Grill on the Market! So juicy and tender. The sirloin was a standard size, with a side (mashed potatoes, baked potatoes or chips). No complaints on the food, it was delicious! Followed by a delicious trifle served in a mason jar. Pretty cool :)
If you can go on the 50% off deal, it’s totally worth it! Even better if you go during happy hour! I loved my Cosmo and Long Island Iced Tea, but I had to season my Bloody Mary with a lot of salt and pepper to get it to a good standard (it was a disappointment in a glass).
I definitely recommend this place as a great restaurant to check out in London. I know I’ll be dining here any chance I get from now on. Can’t wait until I am reunited with this juicy, sizzling, scrumptious steak! :)

Now I love a bit of red meat, especially steak. But normally I don’t order it because I find it overpriced. So imagine my delight when fab Unilocaler Yinnie Chung gave me a birthday treat to 50% off this superb steakhouse right by work. Yes please!
Everything about this evening was perfect; the cocktails served by the chatty waiter were such value for money at £7 and with a happy hour (I recommend the Mint & Violet Crush, especially if you’re a fan of Parma Violets — they’re not for everyone but I love ‘em!). The food was beautifully done, my sirloin was beautifully rare with a really rich bearnaise sauce and to top it off part way through we heard some really chilled music. It took me about 15 minutes to realise that it wasn’t recorded but a guy at a piano in the cocktail bar singing in perfect pitch! SO GOOD we even left our waiter a little piece of cake that Yinnie made me — she was so obviously flirting!
Without the discount, be prepared to pay for the quality here, I wouldn’t be able to afford this normally. A very special treat indeed!

Came here on a triple date a few nights out after a dicey Boris Bike over!
Everyone was late so we ordered from the bar; the bar area looks pretty decent and large so I think this would be a good place for after work drinks etc.
The restaurant area is a little hidden away at the back, so some signage would be helpful. Nice fishtank too :)
When everyone eventually arrived, we ordered a plentiful supply of dead animal dishes including the Wagyu steak which was ‘wooh!!’.
I dont thnk there was much veggie choice which, before everyone chastises me that this is a grill restaurant, shouldnt mean that member (s) of your party should suffer, so maybe another couple of options would be good.
The other thing I would say is that everyone who got steaks found them a tad underdone, my medium-​rare was rare, my friend’s medium was medium-​rare etc.
Service was good, good beers, will check the wine list when I come next time (my bday in a few weeks!).

Maybe it’s because I went on a Monday and it was quiet as. But I declared it when I ate it, and I’ll declare it again, I want to marry the fillet steak. I took my friends there for a birthday meal. Birthday boy loved it!
Top points for:
+Great live music, the piano man sounded LIKE a record, and my friends couldn’t believe it was live.
+Happy Hour Cocktails: They did run out of cucumber at one point, but since I ordered two a go, I just sipped on the one they already made me. Not a problem at all. Highly recommend the mint and violet crush and the raspberry and cucumber cooler! We also tried the pornstar, and zombie (has absinthe in! eek!). The Mandarin Daiquiri tasted a bit like a weaker old fashioned.
+Great Staff: it was attentive, and lovely! We even left them a bit of my cake!
+Food was very good, I mean, the place is called grill on the market, so of course, we all had beef options, ranged from a wagyu burger, three kinds of steak and a spicy beef salad. We also shared 2 sharing platters. I HIGHLY recommend the fish cakes, which was pure fish. How amazing!
Minus points for
+Not having much of a front of house service? We were looking around a bit for the guy to take us to our table?
+the other bits on the sharing platter, didn’t really work. The calamari bites were mainly batter…
We had a 50% offer so, 5 of us, bill came to £88, but we paid drinks separately, and loaded up on happy hour!

I dig the atmosphere and the staff are awesome.
The drinks menu has a lot of options and their cocktails are definitely worth trying!
As for the quality versus cost ratio for their meals, I’m not impressed. I had a pretty pricey meal here and left not feeling satisfied or impressed.
Maybe I’m too picky or maybe they need to adventure a bit more with spicing. Who can say? Most of the entrees were non-​vegan so I didn’t have much of a selection to choose from.
Come back? Definitely. Eat here again? Probably will pass.

Came here for the Saturday brunch.
The servers were not only super friendly, but they were super good looking! ;-)
With tips and tea it came to £14 each for a full English breakfast with unlimited prosecco. The breakfast was delicious. The eggs were huge, the sausage and bacon lovely, the bread toasted perfectly. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was the blood pudding… the texture was a bit to pasty and grainy for my liking.
It was a great deal for unlimited prosecco and great food!

Good Food and nice service. Very interesting interieur