Beef Encounter: meat Mecca hits London

The latest in a long list of meat Meccas to hit London’s dining scene, ‘M’ is luring in the city-slickers with its wallet-busting wine and wagyu.

Martin Williams is sporting an enviable winter tan. Wearing a sharp suit and a fashionable pair of square black specs, two weeks on the beach in Mexico have brought out the freckles on his boyish face. I’m here to find out about the 38-year-old’s new venture, “M”, which he launched late last year amid much fanfare. The buzz was double-pronged, with the industry keen to see what the ex-Gaucho MD had up his sleeve and punters eager to sink their teeth into grade 10++ Kobe beef. Williams claims “M” is the only restaurant in Europe where you’ll find it on the menu.

Split into two 100-cover restaurants, with the Japanese-inspired Raw on the right hand side and a more traditional grill on the left, the 15,000 square foot venue occupies a cavernous space on Threadneedle Street in the beating heart of London’s financial district. Opening in the centre of the City was intentional – steak is the ultimate alpha meal and “M” is perfectly placed to attract the hedge-funders and high rollers working nearby.

Barely two months in and Williams has already built a loyal troop of regulars who, he says, dine at the restaurant every day save for weekends.

Steering the ship is executive chef Michael Reid, with head chef Jarad McCarroll, whom Williams plucked from celebrity favourite the Chiltern Firehouse, at the helm as head chef. Raw features a tartare and tiradito bar serving an array of tartares, from scallop to Argentine beef; sushi and sashimi from Nobu’s supplier; black cod ramen; chicken yakitori and cured langoustines with pink grapefruit, cucumber and shaved foie gras, which has already become a signature dish. Keen to operate in a similar fashion to Chris Corbin and Jeremy King’s all-day dining restaurants, breakfast is served at Raw from 7am with dishes running the gamut from saintly coconut quinoa porridge to decadent confit of duck on toasted brioche served with lashings of hollandaise sauce.
On the grill side, prettified with cobalt blue leather banquettes, all steaks can be cut off the bone to order from the walk-in ageing room, which adds an eerie frisson of theatre to your meal. There’s something quite primal about personally selecting your steak while it’s still hanging on the animal that brings you closer to its life cycle.

Eye for symmetry

Obsessed with symmetry, Williams is passionate about his “six nations” concept. Both the steaks and the wine hail from six different countries in six continents: Argentina, Japan, South Africa, America, France and Australia. He had planned to put kangaroo on the menu, but mercifully the adorable marsupial didn’t make the cut. Crocodile did however, and Williams reports strong sales of the crocodile fillet, which is served as a starter with a hen’s egg, pear, onion and bone marrow. Prices at the grill range from £18 for a Normandie onglet to £150 for 150g of Japanese Kobe. Williams gets his Australian wagyu from the same producer as Heston Blumenthal and Brett Graham of The Ledbury, with supply limited to 14 cattle per person per month, each of which is graded on the quality of its fat content. Kobe and wagyu sales currently account for 10% of all steaks sold at “M”, which Williams seems happy with. To preserve the subtle flavours of the meat, the steaks are cooked on a flame-grilled oven, while a number of the other cuts benefit from the smoky barbecue flavours offered by the josper oven.

Williams believes the six nations concept will work to his advantage in the testosterone-fuelled Square Mile. “Men in particular are very proud of their country’s beef and wine, so I wanted to play with that idea and stir up national pride,” he says. Williams takes the concept so seriously that neither Italian wine nor British beef are served at the restaurant, much to the chagrin of Italophiles and locovores. “English wine isn’t up to scratch so we couldn’t have it as one of our countries, but I get so many requests for Italian wine that I’m thinking of including it in our second site in Victoria, as I love Italian meat too,” Williams concedes.

Due to open at the end of the year, the sister site will have a wine shop attached to it and a private member’s bar. Victoria was chosen for the venue as Williams feels the central London district is woefully under-represented on the restaurant front. He’s contemplating an oval-shaped dining room to make the site a talking point.

In the battle of the six nations, Argentina is winning the wine war due to strong Malbec sales, proving that the classic pairing of steak and Malbec has struck a chord with the British public, though fat cats looking to splash the cash are seeking out Californian Cabernets from the likes of Ridge, Opus One and Dominus, the majority of which come in at over £100 a bottle. Armit is Williams’ main supplier and responsible for the majority of the 150-bin wine list. Liquid pleasure is dispensed by the measure via a fleet of three Enomatic machines. On opening, “M” offered Petrus 2005 by the glass for a wallet-weeping £970. The bottle has since been taken off the Enomatic unopened as not even the city sharks bit. In its place is Château Cheval Blanc 2004 at a more reasonable price point, alongside Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir, Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel and Newton Puzzle, a Bordeaux blend from Napa that is proving one of the restaurant’s best sellers. Also moving well is Villa Ragazzi Faraona Sangiovese from a small family-run estate a stone’s throw from Opus One in Napa, which Williams imports exclusively. At Raw, a trio of quirky sparkling sakés are proving popular, while the grill gets through gallons of Krug Champagne, with corks popping as bonus cheques are cashed.

Behind the cocktail list is Lance Perkins, whose day job is looking after the drinks offering at Ian Schrager’s London Edition hotel in Fitzrovia. At the bar, accessed via a grand staircase that slices the main dining room in two, Perkins has arranged the cocktails into four groups of six (signatures, aperitifs, twists on classics and digestifs), with the six nations on which “M” shines a light represented in each group. Flying the flag for France in the signature section, Les Fleurs du Mal, named after Baudelaire’s famous volume of poetry, blends Grey Goose vodka, Benedictine, yellow Chartreuse, absinthe, jasmine tea, honey and rose water; while the American Dandy combines Woodford Reserve Bourbon with Cocchi Americano, Cherry Heering, kümmel, chocolate and smoked cherry syrup, and spiced bitters. Aiming to capture the elusive savoury fifth sense in a glass, the Umami blends Hibiki 12-year-old Japanese whisky with David Beckham’s Haig Club, plum juice and soya milk.

Boys and their toys

“M” is also home to a hidden den, which you can become a member of if you buy a decanter of whisky or Cognac housed in your own personal locker. Aimed at City boys who still like playing with toys, inside the den is a foosball table, a 32-inch TV connected to an Xbox, and a Bang & Olufsen sound system. Williams has dreamt of opening his own restaurant since he started working for the Gaucho group a decade ago and carries around a Smythson notebook for jotting down things that inspire him during his travels. “I knew if I wanted to do this properly then I had to educate myself in the luxury sphere, so I set about visiting as many five-star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants around the world as I could,” Williams explains, singling out American Danny Meyer as a role model restaurateur due to his focus on giving customers a memorable experience. “My ultimate goal for “M” is for it to serve as a playground, so people can come in for a juice at breakfast, a burger and a beer for lunch, a USDA prime steak for dinner and catch a live music gig over cocktails into the small hours,” says Williams, adding, “I look to the Four Seasons as a model for how I want my service to be. Lots of chef-owned restaurants are only about the food. At “M” the hospitality element is equally important.”
Having left Gaucho last February with nothing more than the idea of opening his own place, Williams struck upon the Threadneedle Street site after a two-month search and signed the lease last August. Astonishingly, the cavernous venue only took eight weeks to build, though it required those involved to work around the clock. “We did things pretty quickly as I was determined to open before Christmas,” says Williams, whose family have put up 30% of the investment with a dozen private investors providing the remainder of the funds. His heart set on a West End site, Williams turned down Threadneedle Street on paper and was close to securing what is now Gordon Ramsay’s Heddon Street Kitchen in Piccadilly, though the promise of a grand space and much lower rents ultimately swayed him east. He aims to open a third site in Soho by the end of 2016.

Asked whether London needs another steakhouse, Williams fiercely defends his turf. “M is a restaurant that specialises in steak rather than a steak restaurant, if that makes any sense. London’s top steakhouses are all about the meat. It was important to me that “M” had a wider offering and that all of the dishes were top notch, hence the addition of Raw,” says Williams, who is “happy to take the hit” on profits in order to invest in the best possible ingredients and an 80-strong team of high-calibre staff. As you’d imagine, weekends are quiet at “M” due to its City location, though promoting themed events for Burn’s Night and Valentine’s Day has helped persuade punters to make the pilgrimage east.

Williams is planning a “bring your dog to brunch” event, tickets for which are selling like hotcakes with the ladies-who-lunch crowd. Perhaps he should dub it “BYOD” (bring your own dog). Having chomped his way through steaks from each of the six nations, which does Williams keep coming back to? “It would have to be the Australian wagyu – I love to sit and savour its rich, buttery flavour, which melts on your tongue like butter over toast,” he says, licking his lips.