Butcher’s Bar & Grill, Hull: I went to this Yorkshire steakhouse and was served the 'Jacob Rees-Mogg of meat'

He wants the USP of his restaurant to be the quality of the meat.

As I look at the bland, flat sirloin steak laid on a wooden plank in front of me, I wonder if he needs to recalibrate his measurement of what a good, local butcher is.

Rewind to earlier in the evening. I’d driven to Bridlington on spec to eat at a promising sounding place in the Old Town, only to be told they are not accepting walk-ins because the waitress has an ear infection. I kid you not.

The restaurant is empty, there is clearly ample room to seat us, but we are given the weirdest and most off-putting excuse for our unwelcomeness that I have ever heard.

Even if I’d booked, I don’t know if I’d want food delivered by an infected-ear waitress. How bad is the infection? How communicable? I decide it's best all round if I stop thinking about it.

So back to Hull we travel. Appetite sharpened by the drive. Only to find that the standby review restaurant I held in reserve isn’t open. Despite Google and their website insisting it is.

I swear that sometimes restaurants are determined to make it as hard as possible for customers to eat with them.

I know it’s a hard game, catering, but leading potential customers to believe you’re open only for them to travel to you and find you’re not is exactly the sort of thing that will put people off your establishment forever.

Which is how we end up at Butcher’s Bar & Grill. Third choice, but that’s not their fault. And despite my poor steak, these culinary benchwarmers shouldn’t be judged badly because of our odyssey of an evening.

Hull folk will remember Butchers as Pools Corner, the type of second-hand shop that used to prosper but has now been almost entirely wiped out by the likes of Ebay and Vinted.

Pool’s Corner served the Avenues area well for decades. I once bought an electric guitar there that proved to not actually feature any functioning electrics.

Then Darius and his wife Jurgita, freshly arrived from Lithuania, transformed the building into Caspar, to fulfil Jurgita’s lifelong dream of owning an ice cream parlour.

Surviving lockdowns necessitated an expansion from ice cream to deliveries and a full food menu which, in turn, resulted in a rebranding around eighteen months ago to Butchers.

The menu offers mainly meat or meat-adjacent options, so we order accordingly. Meatballs are good, though no more. Freshly made and tasty. They’d do.

The nachos were equally average, but bonus points go to the guacamole, which appeared home-made.

For mains, a Butcher Diner burger re-ignited the old height-versus-circumference debate.

I always argue that if you’re going to stuff a burger with something like seven or eight ingredients (in this case beef patty, bacon, fried egg, pickles, cheese, tomato, lettuce, sauce and ketchup) you should extend the bun outwards to accommodate them all more comfortably.

Wider burgers may not look as photogenic, but they are far easier devoured, offering something you can at least hold and bite.

A few sensible burger joints subscribe to this method and it makes for a much more practical and enjoyable dining experience. Most don’t and Butchers is clearly one of them.

A huge, tall pile of food duly arrives, toppling even as it is placed on the table. I’m informed that it was nice. What I can divulge is that it fell apart within one bite, leaving the constituent parts laid across the plank it was served on.

A quick mention of onion rings. I love onion rings. We all love onion rings. So, if you’re going to serve onion rings, make them good. Not what I can buy in Aldi. Point made, let’s move on.

What I’ve learned about steaks is that, if you’re unsure of the quality, you should never order anything expensive because the consequent disappointment is multiplied by the money spent.

There were wagyus and tomahawks and T-bones on the menu, but I followed my own edict and went for a sirloin. Medium-rare. I’m glad I did. Not because it was good, but because if I’d spent almost twice as much (£19.95 versus £36.95 for wagyu sirloin) and been presented with something similarly limp and poorly prepared, I’d have felt robbed.

For a restaurant to introduce itself as specialising in the best butcher-sourced meat in the county, to offer up something so drab is extremely disappointing.

Wafer-thin (so thin that preparing it medium-rare was simply not possible, so why ask?), over-cooked and anaemic looking. It was the Jacob Rees-Mogg of meat. And that’s being kind.

A pair of bare basic puddings (sticky toffee and a brownie) had too much work to do to save the meal and we called it a night without even ordering a second drink.

I’ve long maintained that all a restaurant has to do to survive in the Avenues area of Hull is not mess up. Serve decent food in a decent atmosphere for a not-too indecent price and you’ll do OK.

There is a large, relatively wealthy customer base within walking distance, happy to reward consistency and quality. That Butcher’s Bar & Grill has survived eighteen months already suggests they usually serve slightly better food than they did to us.

The bill wasn’t too upsetting at just shy of £100 but we went away unfulfilled, with no intention of returning. The Avenues crowd will only accept that level of satisfaction for so long.

Welcome 3/5

Food 3/5

Atmosphere 3/5

Prices 3/5

21 Newland Ave, Hull, HU5 3AG

www.thebutchersbargrill.co.uk