Cardiff . Restaurants in Wales . Set lunches . Uncategorized

Maison de Boeuf, Cardiff: review

On May 17, 2023 by The Plate Licked Clean

There’s only one main dish, complains the passerby, peering at the menu and walking away.

Well, fair play to him. He’s grasped the essence of Maison de Boeuf.

Welcome to one of Cardiff’s smallest menus, though nothing beats the pared-back ‘chicken, lamb or nothing’ minimalism of The South Kitchen. Maison de Boeuf is built around one core dish: steak-frites. Two courses for £24.95, three for £29.95.

The Maison concept is clearly in homage to Entrecote and its single dish menu, yet as it’s 2023 they have broadened that to include a ‘Plant based steak’ from meat substitute- wheat protein, so perhaps seitan?- to broaden their appeal.

It’s a stylish, dimly-lit makeover for the former madame fromage, with a smaller ‘Petite Maison’ space opposite for private dining.

Inside the main room they’ve fully embraced the concept: music, chandeliers, mirrors all make for a chic, intimate atmosphere.

Now, there’s an unwritten understanding that you don’t review a soft launch. It’s seen as unfair: you’re there as a live test subject while they encounter and resolve any initial issues, and in return you pay only half price. You don’t rush to social media to broadcast your views, is the idea.

But there were things which bothered me the first time. So, a week later, here I am again, in this grand old Arcade, hoping for clarification.

Individual courses are priced to suggest value lies in the set menus. My first, soft launch visit choices (snails, steak, profiteroles) would have been £41.85 versus the ‘Complète’ £29.95 ‘normal’ set price and the £19.20 I actually paid.

The positives, then: service, from Ivan and Omeada, is great. Warmly welcoming, they are a credit to the place. The ‘secret sauce’ is rather good, and the markup on the Anciens Temps, a light ripe red, is significantly below industry standard at £23.95 bottle. If you nab a window or Arcade seat, it’s an amiable place to settle in and watch Cardiff hurry by. And anywhere which refills your plate is always going to have its admirers.

No modish menu of different cuts, chalked off as they are ordered: just a simple, streamlined selection. A few starters, steak, dessert. Unlike me, small and perfectly formed. What could go wrong?

Those snails arrive positively honking with garlic butter, and plenty of it, which as we know is only ever A Good Thing. The bread, though? It looks for all the world like one of those supermarket part-baked jobs. A French onion soup is cheesy and rich, well seasoned with a welcome peppery tang, the bowl so generously filled it’s a neat trick to start digging in without drowning the plate.

Oddly, an endive salad arrives in a glass mixing bowl, rather than the strongly branded tableware used for other courses. It’s under-dressed, too: unfortunately the Pyrex bowl looks as if someone has started with good intentions, then given up half-way through the process but sent it out anyway. It’s a shame.

Now, call me old-fashioned. But if you call your restaurant ‘House of Beef’ and your website is full of promises of ‘Spécialité Maison, Entrecôte Frites, Sauce Secrète & Petite Salade Verte. (Or ‘The House Speciality, Lean Trimmed Steak with French fries, Secret Sauce & Green Salad’ because we don’t speak forrin since The Referendum, do we..?) then you’d expect…a steak.

I ask for medium-rare: I’m told they slice so thinly, they can only offer rare, medium and well. Rare it is, then.

I’m anticipating a good sear, those grill tigerstripes, a furious blush.

What arrives on both occasions resembles nothing quite so much as topside carved for Sunday lunch, rather than anything I’d understand as ‘steak’, especially in this context.

The beef is British, I’m told, from a local supplier, which turns out to be Castell Howell. That’s a shame. For this price you might expect the sort of producers you’d namedrop on your menu and in your press: if not Olly Woolnough at Meat Matters, then a renowned local producer like Abergavenny’s Neil Powell or even long-established butcher JT Morgan in Cardiff Market. The ingredients of the ‘secret sauce’ are jealously guarded, but it is essentially a variation on the classic béarnaise, loaded with extra herbs. The essential tarragon, of course, and basil and parsley… chervil too? It is plentiful, nicely balanced stuff, just begging to have thick slices of pink steak dredged through it.

Fries rustle and snap, crisp and tangy with salt, and are so uniform they look for all the world as if they have come from the freezer, though I’m sure that couldn’t be the case for a £30 meal in a restaurant built around one core dish. Or the dessert, where my spoon struggles to cut through the barely-thawed centre of my profiterole. The bread feels and tastes for all the world like a supermarket part-baked specimen. Again, I’m sure it’s not: at this price point that would be underwhelming.

The pricing, then, is an issue. And oddly, when others offer a discounted way into a typically more expensive experience, it’s the one price all-day strategy which leaves Maison badly exposed. It might feel a better deal for dinner. After all, at lunch it is pitching itself against some formidable competition for your money.

And here’s where I channel Jim Bowen (ask your parents…) and tell you, ‘Look what you could have won’, and why I can’t recommend Maison de Boeuf as a priority.

Not when The Potted Pig’s lunch deal is 3 for £23.

Not when Le Monde serves a two-course lunch for £26.

Nor when the same buys you three at Casanova, with all that implies; and perhaps most damningly- when £30 gets you three courses at Asador 44, where much of the food has travelled further than from the walk-in freezer.

Instagram will love it, of course. Right now, much of this menu feels underthought, and overpriced. I am, of course, happy to be corrected. But then I remember the vanilla milkshake, my daughter’s favourite at Coffee Barker nearby, is now £6.99. Which is going some, even if the milk has just been squeezed from a unicorn teat and the vanilla is single estate Tahitian.

Unfortunately, Maison de Boeuf is presently a frustrating proposition. There’s an attractive idea here: a simple menu, done well, with great sourcing, could and should be a lovely thing. But details count. I hope things will improve, because with some changes, this could well be one of the city centre’s most attractive spots.

Right now, Maison de Boeuf, oddly, reminds me of MP Michael Fabricant’s hair: shiny, eye-catching but ultimately unconvincing.

21 Castle Arcade, Cardiff CF10 1BU

Wednesday 12 – 15:00, 17:30 – 21:30
Thursday 12 – 15:00, 17:30 – 21:30
Friday 12 – 15:00, 16:30 – 22:00
Saturday 12 – 15:30, 16:30 – 22:00
Sunday 12 – 15:00, 16:30 – 21:00