Name: Chop Shop
Location: 6 Haymarket, London, SW1Y, UK
Website: http://www.chopshopuk.com
Email: enquiries@chopshopuk.com
Hours: Monday-Saturday, midday to midnight

It was date night last night and my boyfriend took me to Chop Shop near Piccadilly Circus. He had found a great offer on Time Out where we had 3 courses and a cocktail for £27 per person which did limit us to a much smaller menu but it gave us the opportunity to go for dishes that we may not usually go for.

The venue itself is what I would call trendy but not pretentious (like so many trendy establishments in London). I felt like we had walked into a New York restaurant which works for me as I love the city. It had a wonderful atmosphere and it was great to see such a place in the too touristy Piccadilly Circus.

The waitress was extremely helpful especially when I asked her advice on what was and wasn’t gluten free on the menu. She gave her suggestions but went to check with the Chef to make sure. Without hesitation she said they could do the artichoke and truffle mousse with crudités rather than bread so I went for that. I wouldn’t usually go for a truffle based dish but it was delicious and worked surprisingly well with the crudités.

For my main course I choose the hanger steak with chips and the red wine and bone marrow sauce. The steak had a wonderful texture to it and was very juicy (I did go for a rare steak). I did try the sauce (all of which are gluten free apart from the vodka peppercorn sauce) but the steak really didn’t need anything else…this is coming from a sauce fanatic!

Finally, the dessert. I was a little gutted because on the menu they had a brownie sundae with peanuts and peanut sauce but it wasn’t gluten free. However, the waitress suggested a selection of ice creams so I went for the white chocolate and the caramel ice creams served with chocolate sauce – I’m not usually an ice cream person but it was absolutely wonderful and really hit the spot. Thank you for introducing such fantastic ice cream to my life Chop Shop.

We really want to go back and try other dishes on the menu but we really enjoyed what we did have, the atmosphere was great and the waitress couldn’t have been any more helpful. If you want a trendy, non-pretentious, city restaurant with great food then I would highly recommend Chop Shop. Oh and do try the garam masala cocktail – it’s great and I know you probably wouldn’t usually pick it!