Review: The Ox, Clapham
Review: The Ox, Clapham
This Clapham gastropub has quite the following among the area’s young crowd. A rainy Friday evening had not put them off heading out and every table was taken – a group in the downstairs area celebrating a birthday, the mezzanine and ground floor pub space occupied with diners. And a few who’d popped in for a pint. Sister pub to the Clapham’s The Rose & Crown, it’s clearly found its way to local hearts.
We’d booked for dinner and our table was downstairs in the pub area. We settled into two winged armchairs and ordered a Negroni while we looked over the menu – meat is the speciality here with beef sourced from the owner’s farm on the Scottish borders and dry aged. There’s an impressive chiller cabinet so you can take a look at what’s on offer. For non-meat eaters, the menu, on our visit, included whole roasted plaice, pan-roasted salmon with girolles, or charred cauliflower. Other diners were happily tucking into burgers. We love a steak and couldn’t resist the sirloin (£34).
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Plump chargrilled prawns and some salt and pepper squid started things off nicely – both spicy variants on the dish, ideal for a cold drizzly evening.
Steaks arrived perfectly cooked and were deeply flavoured – delish. Accompanying peppercorn and chimichurri sauces on the side were also good. All washed down with a decent Malbec.
Décor is gastropub chic with tiling and wood panels. Worth knowing is it also has a rooftop terrace for warmer weather. The Ox is a buzzing place – for dinner, the upstairs mezzanine area looked like it might have been the better place to sit – our armchairs and small low table was not ideal for tucking into steak.
But it’s a great spot, and particularly laudable is steak night on a Tuesday where all cuts are available at cost price starting from £5.
The Ox
50 Clapham High Street.
