[EDIT: FLAT IRON HAS NOW OPENED PERMANENTLY IN SOHO! HAPPINESS LOOKS LIKE STEAK]

For the amount of meals each week that I eat out of the house (usually around 4 out of 7 dinners – I don’t cook so well!), I rarely write restaurant posts. In fact on owLondon I have never written one, this is clearly about to change.

Any frequent Shoreditch drinker will know the Owl and The Pussycat on Redchurch St. – but did you know that as of last week they’re hosting an amazing new steak joint called Flat Iron?

Flat Iron’s mission is to showcase slow reared, well marbled, deeply flavorsome beef including rare British beef breeds such as the Devon Red and White Park.

As a big advocate of the trend of single dish restaurants – deciding what to drink is a tough enough decision – I was excited to check it out. Flat Iron has one main dish on the menu, a steak know as the “The Flat Iron Steak” – which I learned is a little known cut of beef taken from the shoulder of the cow. While I know little about beef, I knew I should be impressed by the waitress’ knowledge of the beef that was being served on the night – although just the confuse things they had two that night. I chose using the, tried and tested, method of picking the steak that they only had limited numbers of and took their recommendation and ordered it medium rare – that said, unlike other restaurants i’ve been to, they were completely accommodating when my dining partner for the evening asked for his slightly more well done.

To save ourselves from making any difficult decisions (it was a Thursday night after all), we decided it was safest to pretty much order one of every side too, which included chips, market greens, and  roast aubergine (which is also avaialble as a side for any misguided vegetarians that had been brought to a steak restaurant, as the waitress told us “sometimes guys unwittingly bring their girlfriends” – that said the aubergine was pretty damn good).

Now, you know I said that it was difficult enough to decide what to drink? Well this is that much harder at Flat Iron with Nate Sorby (of London Cocktail Club) in charge of the cocktail list. Now anyone who follows me on Twitter will possibly be aware that I have, for some time, been in the search of London’s best Bloody Mary. It turns out, as I had suspected, that I make the best Bloody Mary in London although only with the ingredients (including rosemary salt, horseradish and beefstock) given to me by Flat Iron provided with their Make Your Own Bloody Mary. At first you may think the beef stock is a little odd, but trust me it makes all the difference.

I also had the pleasure of trying a wonderful thyme bramble, while my, whiskey fanatic friend, enjoyed a julep (made with Penderyn Welsh whisky) to start followed by one of the beers that Flat Iron have carefully selected to best compliment the beef.

Once we were on our way with our drinks our food arrived. All of our sides were great, with a particular honorable mention to the auburgine (which I sadly found out a little too late, having eaten a little too much to really appreciate), and the steak was cooked perfectly (to our differing preferences) and whether it was the flat iron cut or just that they really know how to cook a steak (I suspect a combination of the two), it was an amazing steak tender and flavoursome with a pleasantly salty edge, something that a lot of the dishes shared - in the words of our very lovely waitress, as she sprinkled a little on our delicious chocolate and caramel mousse, “salt makes all the difference” (we’re glad we didn’t argue).

While this is our first restaurant post, there are more to come, but unfortunately for them the bar has been set pretty high!

Flat Iron‘s residency will run until 29 august and I’ve already planned a few more visits before it disappears.

ps. almost forgot to mention they also give you a meat cleaver to cut your steak… and there was me thinking the day my dad let me use a steak knife for the first time was my ultimate step into manhood.

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