I almost didn’t write this review, mainly out of selfish-ness. This place is an absolute babe, and I kind of didn’t want to spread the word, as I didn’t want to have to wait longer for a table (insert monkey with hands over eyes emoji). Cookhouse Joe on Berwick Street in Soho is a popular lunchtime institution, described by some as a better Nando’s, I’ve got to say, I agree.
The restaurant itself is very small, set over two floors, and there is often a queue out of the door. Word of advice, if you’re going with a group – all of your group have to be there before they’ll seat you. We visited here just before Christmas and we had to wait about 10 mins for a table, but they do have heaters outside to keep you warm while you wait. Inside, the decor is quite non-descript – very plain and functional, but it has a sort of cosy feel about it. Appreciate there’s a lot of contradictions there, but if you visited, you’d see what I mean!
The menu isn’t too extensive, but from what I’ve been told, everything they do, they do well. Main options seem to be chicken, chicken in a wrap, halloumi, halloumi in a wrap or a burger. Being a creature of habit, I always go for the same thing and on this trip it was no exception. I had a half chicken with chips, salad and garlic dip. As you can see, the portion size is very decent especially for the price (which I’ll come on to). The chicken was nice and succulent and there was just the right number of fries. The salad had a few too many tomatoes for my liking, but I think this was just luck of the draw, as someone I was with had no tomatoes but lots of cucumber.
I’m going to give the garlic dip a whole paragraph of it’s own. This dip is seriously garlicky. And that’s not me being overdramatic. You will eat it and then feel genuinely self-conscious about talking to anyone for the rest of the afternoon. Even after copious amounts of chewing gum. That’s not to say that it isn’t delicious, it is. That just happens to be the problem!
Now, on to the best bit. For all of that food and a Diet Coke, it came to £8.50. Absolute bargain, especially when you think that for just a half-chicken in Nandos, you pay £7.15. I had to look that up BTW, I don’t just know the prices of Nando’s off the top of my head. We ate off of the lunch menu, so if you went outside of this it might be a bit pricier, but I can’t imagine it being much more than that – and it would taste just as good!
So there you have it, somewhere else to add to your lunchtime venues! Have you tried it out?
Thanks for reading!
Sammy x
