Goodman Mayfair

What can I say, the steaks are good, very good. It’s been a few years since I have eaten here and the standard and quality is as good if not better than I remember. Service was brisk but friendly, the restaurant was fully booked on a Tuesday night. Our table was a little close to a large table of 8 people so every time the waiting staff went to their table or someone got up to go out for a ciggie, one of our chairs got knocked, which was a little annoying but apart from that we had a very enjoyable evening. Decent wine list. I have to say though, Hawksmoor is my absolute favourite steak restaurant though, they have the edge on service and menu in my humble opinion.

There is something deeply satisfying about eating a slab of meat. Admittedly it is not an experience one would want to do every day, but when doing, it is worth doing properly. There are indeed few better places to enjoy such a delight than at Goodman, although be warned, the experience does not come cheap. The group (ironically backed by Russians, despite being purveyors of good old American cow) has been established in London for some time, but this was my first visit to their Mayfair outpost in around three years. The atmosphere is lively, but at the same time, Goodman retains some of the intimacy that the larger and more cavernous Hawskmoor restaurants lose. Moreover, whereas Hawksmoor plays to its quintessential British roots, Goodman is decidedly more international both in terms of décor and clientele. Ultimately though, it is the food that matters. Staff here were undoubtedly well-informed, talking us through the menu and also the cuts of the day, suggesting appropriate accompaniments and wine pairings, all conveyed in an enthusiastic fashion. My comrade and I opted to share 600g worth of T-Bone, brought to the table on a lovely wooden board and already dissected into chunks for us. Cooked medium-rare as we had requested, the meat was deliciously tender, with a melt-in-the-mouth quality. The red wine gravy and black pepper sauces both enhanced the taste. Our sides also pleased, rich buttery mushrooms and a lighter spinach dish, the latter flavoured with garlic and lemon. All of this was washed down with a couple of glasses of highly quaffable South African red wine, one of around ten options available by the glass. The only drawback: just as your stomach knows about steak, so does your wallet about Goodman. With water and coffees thrown in, we were pushing £110; far from cheap, even if very good.

Very good and the beef is always excellent.

Had an absolutely great time here at the Goodman… Staff were brilliant – Went that extra mile to make sure we had a really extra -ordinary experience on my wife's birthday .. Very friendly, attentive and really knew their stuff when it came to the ingredients…Food came in on time, hot and cooked to perfection…All washed down with some excellent wine…Who could ask for more… Well we did and got some delicious deserts to polish off this night of real proper traditional indulgence… Superb!

Our experience at Goodman was excellent. The restaurant is passionate about their steaks and before ordering the waiter brought the cuts to the table so we could take a look and have the different cuts explained.

Great steak and side dishes, large portions, good wine list, buzzy atmosphere, good service.

Went to Goodman a month after a seeking a top notch steak night out venturing wrongly initially to Hawksmoor in Covent Garden. Goodman is much much better. This has a more intimate feel, a fun bar. Lovely decor. Very friendly and efficient staff. The wine, what we tried of it was gorgeous. You're not rushed, they give you some nice warm bread upon arrival (free) and offer you more as well. The food was amazing. The waiting staff very knowledgeable and paitent. They present with a board showing you the cuts and how is best to have them cooked, etc. We didn't wait for long for it to arrive. Other people's desserts looked fab but we didn't have any room. Definitley returning. Overall bill with drinks at bar, steaks and sides each and a bottle of wine with service c£120. Which we felt was good value.

went for dinner at 5.30pm, as i was going to theatre. Service was quick and efficient, i had tiger prawn tempura and my wife had lobster cocktail, it was nice, cant really think of anything else to say! steaks were very good, i had the rib eye, my wife had the fillet was cooked very well. the white wine selcetion was poor, but to be expected ina steak restaurant. the problem with this place is., while the food is good, it is very expensive for what it is, £170 for 2 people with no coffee or deserts, they have to be careful, because at that money you are starting to knock on the doors of top end restaurants. next time i think i will go to the anthologist, because to be honest there steak and chips for £15 maybe a tad smaller, is just as good and half the price. If i am spending getting on close for £200 for dinner i expect great things, and while this is good ,it is simply not worth the kind of money they are charging. If you go here, make sure someone else is paying.

Bit guy heavy in the restaurant. Friendly staff, amazing steak and good selection of Red.

Goodman looks like it has been transported whole from Lower Manhatten. Dark wooded booths, attractive and attentive waiting staff, and big, thick, USDA prime beef. All things that wouldn't be out of place in the Big Apple. What is out of place is the wholly British drunk. Having a bar in a restaurant makes perfect sense: you can sip a martini before dinner and then move on to your table. Here, a group that had clearly been going since lunchtime hogged the place, leaning over the tables unfortunately too close to the bar. The polite but firm waitress tried to get them to keep to one side and not disturb people, but to no avail. It is rare that I find myself thinking that they've got something right in the US, but here I do: there is no way that this situation would have been allowed to happen in NYC. It isn't that our American cousins are any less prone to getting drunk, it is just that an up market restaurant wouldn't allow them to get to this stage in the first place and, if they had, wouldn't have politely asked them not to get in anyone's way, they'd have thrown them out. Before people think I'm getting too sniffy about people having fun, I really don't mind, so long as their enjoyment doesn't translate to misery for other. Remember that this place isn't cheap. In fact, at around £30 a steak, it is expensive compared to other, serious meaty competitors. It is upmarket. It is in Mayfair. There are families. There is a time and a place for getting rowdy in a bar. This isn't it. That said, we were moved from the bar to the dark wooded etc. table at the back and the serious business of devouring steak began. I had always thought that vegetarian hell would be St John, but that is just too light and airy. No, if you want to make a vegan cry, this is the place to do it. The steak is introduced to you like a Hatton Garden jeweller bringing out the wedding rings: laid out on a silver platter, from the 250g grass fed Irish fillet (the single carat, internally flawless, D, round princess cut) to the 1.5kg USDA T-bone (the twenty carat, yellow, Graff bling). Each one is lovingly described: the fillet (pronounced filit, rather than fi-'la), being grass fed, we are told, will be stronger tasting. The USDA, being corn fed, will be more marbled and succulent. We settled on a couple of USDA rib-eyes, a fillet and lamb chops. I know; why lamb in a steak restaurant? Well actually, the non-beef dishes are pretty fine too. Starters ranged from a so-so mozzarella and tomato salad (which had been reformed into a cylinder for no discernable reason); some lovely hot smoked salmon and, the pick of the bunch, some beautifully light and crisp tempura prawns. The lamb too got the double thumbs up, and the chips were perfectly fine examples. It was, however, the steak that recieved a mixed review. It wasn't that the steak wasn't excellent; it was. Both the Irsih (which was stronger tasting) and the USDA (which was, as advertised, noticably juicier) were lovely cuts of meat. It was just the way that it was cooked. Rare doesn't mean not cooked. It means seared hard on the outside, and running with myoglobin when cut through. It isn't easy to achieve at home, as you need a really, really hot pan. In a restaurant, especially a steak one, it should be easy to get right. My tip for ordering here is, even if you like your steak rare, the USDA is so juicy that, if they are not going to get the temperature of the pan right, a medium rare works best. The wine list is good and solid, vearing very much to the top end red from around the globe: we had a Californian Zin and a St Emillion Grand Cru. Both stood up to the steak admirably. Service is good; attentive but not overbearing and prices are Mayfair. Overall a very nice place, for a beautiful steak. Just avoid the bar.