Pitt Cue

Editor's note: in January 2016 the restaurant closed here and moved to Devonshire Square, near Liverpool Street.

Pitt Cue celebrates the barbecue, and grew out of a food truck under the Hungerford Bridge into permanent premises near Oxford Street. Jamie Berger (evident in the room when I was there) and Tom Adams have now put down roots in a quiet Soho street. Upstairs there are counter seats and a bar, downstairs a small room with a few closely-packed tables and basic decor. The meat was served in enamel dishes rather than on plates, and cutlery was in a shared box, so you are firmly in casual dining territory, which seems entirely appropriate for this kind of food. Considerable effort is made in sourcing the meat, which was brought in mostly from the west country, and indeed one of the meat suppliers has also been used by the Ledbury. There were no reservations, and in the evening the queues have become a thing of legend.  At noon on the day of my visit, however, just five customers were waiting for the doors to open, so choose your eating time wisely.

The pulled pork (£11 buys you a dish of meat, pickles and bread) was the highlight of the meal, tender, smoky, delicious (15/20). The rib eye (£5.50) had meat that had plenty of flavour, but could have been just a little more tender for me (13/20). The sprouting broccoli was undercooked, though it had good flavour (12/20). A chocolate brownie (£4.50) with vanilla ice cream was too dense in texture, and the ice cream was both too heavy in texture and lacked sufficient vanilla (11/20).

Service was fine, and the bill for this, with tap water only, was £23.63 for one person. This may seem cheap in the evening, though at lunch in Soho a similar sum would buy you a three course meal at, say, Gauthier. Still, I liked Pitt Cue a lot more so than some of the recent London trendy openings, and will happily return.  If you skip dessert and try the pork in particular you will find it hard not to like Pitt Cue.