31/07/2023

The Butcher’s Block in Stone, Staffordshire

The Butcher’s Block in Stone Staffordshire has barely been open two months. But it’s off to a flying start. Specializing in locally sourced, great quality dry-aged steaks cooked perfectly, it’s worth every penny. Lots of choice for meat lovers plus some imaginative sides and veggie dishes.

GRIFFIN & GRAY

Styling itself as a steakhouse and bar, The Butcher’s Block opened a couple of months ago in the market town of Stone. Previously The Talbot pub, the team behind the new venture are Nick Griffin, local butcher of Griffins of Stone and events manager Adam Gray.

Under their brand Griffin and Gray, the business partners have been catering for outdoor parties, barbecues, hog roasts, carveries, and at street food events like Feast Stone.

But now they’ve taken it to a new level with a restaurant and bar. Anyone who followed them on Facebook early this year will have seen The Talbot transform into The Butcher’s Block with a total refurbishment. After a few soft openings and a couple of weeks of walk-ins only, they fully opened at the beginning of June 2023.

THE BUTCHER’S BLOCK

Giving it a while for things to settle in, I took partner ID along for an early dinner last Saturday night. Next to Stone railway station, I liked the striking exterior complete with cow horns (although I may have been influenced by just watching all seasons of Yellowstone back to back…).

Walking through the bar and into the restaurant, I liked the décor too. Attractively unpretentious with lots of wood. Apparently, the wall cladding is upcycled scaffolding boards from a local company. Crockery and candles are locally sourced too.

But I’m here for the food. And a sight to please any meat lover, specifically of the beefy variety, was the dry aging cabinet. Dry aging or maturing beef on the bone gives it great flavour and makes it more tender too. And these looked great.

Being a bar as well as a restaurant, you’ll find the usual range of alcoholic and soft drinks, cocktails, beers, and ciders. Unless I missed them, I didn’t spot any local beers though. Given that Staffordshire, and just over the border in Cheshire, has some great independent breweries, a few would be a good addition, I think.

But, already deciding I was going to eat steak, I wanted red wine anyway. The wine list was pretty comprehensive, but we went for a bottle of the house Shiraz. It was a very reasonable £21 and went down nicely.

THE BUTCHER’S BLOCK MENUS

There’s a shorter lunchtime menu, and roasts for Sundays. But on Saturday night we could choose from eight starters, seven mains plus ten choices of steak. Along with these were around a dozen side dishes.

For starters, prices ranged from £6.50 for piri piri chicken wings or soup, a trio of brisket sliders or crispy pork belly (both at £9), to prawn pil pil at £10.50. Non-meat, non-seafood options were Parmesan brulé (£7.50), beetroot steak with goats cheese (£7.00), and a baked camembert to share (£12).

As you might expect from a butcher-led restaurant most of the mains were meaty. Two appeared to be vegetarian: a veggie polenta cake with sauteed wild mushrooms and spinach (£15) and a mushroom risotto (£14). I’ll talk about the steak menu when I come to our main course, but the other mains included buttermilk fried chicken burger, bone marrow beef brisket burger (both £16), free range pork tomahawk (£17), a delicious sounding chicken and sweetcorn dish (£16.50), and slow braised lamb shoulder chop with dauphinois potatoes (£23.50).

I have to say, if for some bizarre reason this steakhouse was out of steak, I’d happily eat any of those meat dishes.

CAMEMBERT SHARING STARTER

Knowing we were going to have a meaty main course, we both fancied a veggie starter. The Baked Camembert Sharing Starter (£12.00) came with a pile of homemade onion chutney and four thick slices of toasted ciabatta bread. When it arrived though, we didn’t get the bubbling, molten cheese we were hoping for. ID touched the top and it felt barely warm. Cutting into the cheese, our suspicions were confirmed. It was hardly melted at all, with the middle still firm and cool.

I’m not one of those people who takes a grim satisfaction in criticizing and sending food back. I really want to enjoy my meal and be able to recommend it to others. In fact, knowing how difficult things are for the hospitality industry right now, I’m almost willing to turn a blind eye to minor errors like this.

But ID was right in convincing me we should send it back. We just wouldn’t have enjoyed it the way it was. In any case, everyone makes mistakes, and how you deal with them says a lot too.

Unphased, our server politely took the dish back straight away with no quibbling. And it wasn’t long before she brought it back. A quick slash with my knife and the golden cheese came oozing out perfectly.

Piled on the lightly toasted, good quality bread, topped with the sweet yet tangy onions, the cheesy starter ended up just as good as I’d hoped.

BUTCHER’S BLOCK STEAKS

There were absolutely no errors with our main course though. But before I get to that, let me first tell you about the steak menu as a whole. After all, this is what The Butcher’s Block specializes in.

There’s a choice of sirloin or ribeye at 8oz, 12oz or 16oz (£27 – £43), and fillet of 6oz (£30) or 8oz (£38). There are also two sharing steaks: 22oz T-Bone (£70) and Cote De Boeuf (£80). If you’re baulking at these prices, be aware that these are not bog-standard steaks. Locally sourced, selected by an award-winning butcher, they should be some of the best you can get around here. They’re also dry aged in-house, which takes time (look at the dates in the photo of the dry aging cabinet) and, as we all should know, time is money.

For your money, as well as a steak cooked to your liking, you’ll get triple cooked chips, a portobello mushroom, a roasted tomato, and one of six sauces.

COTE DE BOEUF SHARING STEAK

ID and I went for the sharing Cote De Boeuf. At £80 it’s the most expensive item on the menu. However, as it feeds two, it works out cheaper per person than the largest sirloin or ribeye. It was the only steak on the menu without a weight, but I can tell you that it was ENORMOUS. Unsurprisingly really as it’s a whole rib of beef. Like a standard ribeye, it had plenty of marbling and some fat which keeps it moist as it cooks.

On its long black platter, a big tomato perched on a mushroom placed neatly at either end, the beef looked and smelled amazingly appetizing. Wonderfully charred and juicy. I did wonder though whether my ordinary steak knife would be able to slice up the beast. Would a carving knife be better? But I needn’t have worried. I easily cut through the tender meat and tasty fat.

When asked by our server how we’d like it cooked, I’d said ‘however the chef recommends’. I was hoping that would mean the fat well rendered and brown, the outer flesh crustily dark, but pink and juicy within. Which is exactly what I got.

I might have been tempted to add a little salt if there’d been any on the table (although I’ve long learned there’s no shame in asking for some if you want it). But once I started in on our choice of sauce, béarnaise, salt wasn’t necessary anyway. The rich sauce was well made, buttery and tangy with a good amount of fresh tarragon.

CHIPS, TOMATO & MUSHROOM

Our pots of skin-on triple cooked chips were generously filled. The ones on the top were crispy, those underneath (due to steam I guess) were softer but still had great flavour. They were perfectly seasoned.

As they’re often undercooked, I rarely enjoy the whole tomato that comes with steaks and full English breakfasts. Here though, not only was it perfectly roasted, it tasted great. Roasted in beef fat maybe? As someone who doesn’t like underdone mushrooms either, I enjoyed my fully cooked but juicy specimen.

ONION RINGS & OTHER SIDES

After seeing the fantastic looking, ultra-crispy onion rings arriving at nearby tables, I had to order a side of them (£4) for ours. They turned out to be even better than they looked. I don’t know how The Butcher’s Block did it, but the batter was the crunchiest I’ve ever had. And not just on the first few.

You know how after enthusiastically starting on a bowl of onion rings, you gradually find them a bit greasy and off-putting? Well, somehow, the last of these were just as good, and just as crunchy, as that first delectable bite. I also don’t know what they’d seasoned the batter with, but it was so tasty! Herby, peppery, and just insanely savoury.

Other sides you could choose with your steak were corn on the cob (£4), mac n cheese (£6), Comte cheese & truffle oil mash (£5), and chilli king prawn skewers (£8). There’s also another set of sides which includes things like slaw (£3.50), spring greens or Caesar salad (both £5).

Serving ourselves from the platter, the pots of chips and sauce, and the bowl of onion rings, made for satisfying eating.

Even though we both kept going back for more, despite saying that was precisely what we couldn’t do, we still didn’t quite finish all the cote de boeuf. But there was no way other half was leaving it behind. A fan of making lunchtime noodle bowls with homemade stock when he’s working from home, the remaining meat and the bone were packed up for him. The resulting beefy stock and little morsels of meat to heat in it are in our freezer as I write.

DESSERT

One of the reasons we didn’t eat all our steak was we wanted to have a pudding too. There was a choice of four desserts (£7 – £8.50) plus a cheese board (£7.50/£13.50) and a trio of ice creams (£6).

Correction. After ordering, there turned out to be only three choices of ‘proper’ pudding. The last chocolate tart had just been sold, which seemed a bit of a blunder so early on a Saturday night. So ID had to change his order. Like me, he went for the crème brûlée (£8).

Our desserts weren’t long in coming and had a lovely deep golden and crispy caramelized sugar topping. Smashing through with my spoon, instead of the usual set custard though, it was more fluid. While you don’t want it to be firm, I think it should have some wibble-wobble.

There was plenty of vanilla flavour though, and I still enjoyed it. But I couldn’t help thinking it would be better poured over the Apple & Blackberry Crumble (£7).

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Not even opened for two months yet, I think The Butcher’s Block is off to a great start.

It’s not just a steakhouse, but steaks are its speciality. And on that front, they’ve nailed it. The great quality of the beef, the range of cuts and sizes available, the perfect cooking and resulting fantastic flavour and texture are all there.

There’s a good range of other meat dishes too, all of which sound tempting. A variety of sides, both traditional and more unusual, are on offer. While I don’t think you can expect a steakhouse to produce lots of veggie dishes, it does appear that genuine thought has been given to making interesting the ones they do have.

Given such early days, I’m more than willing to forgive the less-than-melting Camembert. Especially as it was put right quickly and without fuss. Nor is the crème brûlée’s lack of wobble going to stop me highly recommending them.

The service from the young front of house team was excellent. Which is particularly impressive given they’ve not had much time to settle in yet.

As to value for money, in these days of rising costs for businesses as well as households, I was happy with what I paid for our meal. Without drinks, the bill was £112. Of course, that isn’t cheap for two people. But most of that cost comes from a large, impressive main course at £40 per person. And for quality beef, produced with care and properly aged, you really have to expect to pay a decent price if a restaurant is to be viable.

Whether you’re a steak fan or not though, I hope you’ll give The Butcher’s Block a try. Book here.