Le Relais de Venise, London, Marylebone W1

Last night I found myself in an extremely wet central London. After a drink my friend and I thought, as per usual, food. Where to? We were on Marylebone High Street and after walking for about 10 minutes in the rain, I remembered of this place that I went to about three years ago. All they serve is steak frites. Agreed, we headed to Le Relais de Venise.

Let me explain. All that is served here is a salad, a basic lettuce salad and then steak frites. Yes, that's it! We found it and already there was a long queue which went all the way round the corner. There were another 15 minutes to the evening opening- Sunday dinner starts at 6.30pm and people were waiting outside in the rain, just for steak frites. Did I mention? They don't take reservations so there are always long queues.

So. You would think that for people to be waiting in the rain for the place to open then it must be good. Very good.. Right? Sorry but I'll be frank and you can stop reading here if you want, here's the conclusion: wrong! Very wrong.

I guess there is a certain novelty to the fact that all that is served is salad and steak. Surely there must also be a novelty in queuing? I don't think so. Come on, we are no longer 18 waiting to get into a west end club.

In we went, convinced that this would be an excellent dining experience. The diners seemed to me to be in the vast majority tourists, certainly no locals from what I could gather. The decor that of a typical french bistrot where nothing has changed in the last 30 years. The waitresses dressed the part in a black uniform with the white aprons. We were presented with the menu and almost instantly the waitress came back for our order. We asked for two minutes and when she came back, she briefly explained the concept and asked how we would like our steak. My friend was promptly interrupted when he requested medium rare. No such choice, it's either medium or rare. Orders done together with a bottle of wine, our salad arrived. Lots of lettuce-my tortoise would have loved that- with some dressing and walnuts. Ok salad done. Our steak arrived.

Waitresses serving up



Steak frites (note: emphasis on the frites)



House red

To be fair it's very efficient. The waitresses serve up the slices of steak and sauce and more frites than I have ever seen before on a plate. If it was alive, the frites would have drowned the steak. Poor steak.. Steak was average. They do come back and serve you seconds, because apparently they keep it warm for you- I think we got another three (small) slices. And lots more frites, to drown the second round of steak-just in case. We debated on the sauce as we detected hints of curry. We asked the waitress and were advised that it's a 'secret' sauce. It's a sauce, not the invention of the century! Anyway, what can one say.

After all the frites we had we didn't need dessert, although there was a satisfactory selection. The bill arrived. The 'set' menu is £21 pp and our wine (house red) was £15. Including service we paid £32 each. Quite overpriced if you ask me. So if you are in the area and are tempted-don't. You're better off going to the fish and chip place accross the road.

Le Relais de Venise, 120 Marylebone Lane, London, W1U 2QG Tel: 020 7486 0878 http://www.relaisdevenise.com/