New Restaurant Review: MEATliquor

By tikichris Last edited 148 months ago
New Restaurant Review: MEATliquor


From the folks that brought the Meatwagon to the London masses comes a stationary brick and mortar meat offering. For carnivorous cravings and crafty cocktails, MEATliquor is well worth considering. Just don't go expecting this to be a fast food heaven.

Service sucks (or will need some serious whipping into shape ASAP) despite a friendly staff. During our visit the dining space was less than half filled, but nevertheless flustered servers zipped about seemingly oblivious to who ordered what, when and where. The burgers and fries menu aside, MEATliquor's offerings can hardly be described as fast food.

Ambience is purposely slouchy chic with an imagined Americana air. Street art adorns the walls and ceiling to an effect that's something like a pared down, slightly wrecked Bodean's or Byron. There's a strong chance you'll hear Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton or bluegrass while chowing down here.

The food menu is beautifully perfunctory and to the point with, from what we can tell, magnificent highs and mediocre lows. Let's start with a low and eat our way up. Buffalo wings with blue cheese dip (£5) are decent but kinda boring and lack any proper heat. Much more a succulent success, the “Meatwagon original” cheeseburger (£6.50) is absolutely gorgeous and proved worth the hassled wait it took to get it to our table. It might just be the best (if not the biggest) hamburger we'll ever sink our teeth into around this town.

We're still wondering if it was worth £6.50 though. Our admittedly massive side of fries (£3) paired perfectly with the burger but seemed a tad expensive too. Overall we were pleased with our meal but left feeling that £16.50 plus tip for some wings, a burger with fries and a Coke in a shit hole (however stylised and centrally located it may be) with slow service was a bit rich.

The food's only half the equation. As the resto's name implies, they've got liquor. Priced around £7 with classic cocktails with some snazzed up names (Memphis Steamer, Meatjito, Wagon Girl), the drinks menu is an impressive read that's respectful to the origins of the world's best liquor concoctions.  There's a good and unfussy variety of wines too. And of course you can have a beer, soft drink or such with your burger. Sadly, Londonist visited for a quick weekday lunch and can't vouch for any of the drinks, but the mildly raucous table next to us appeared especially enthused to be slurping a few of them down.

MEATliquor is located at 72 Welbeck Street (at Henrietta Street), W1G 0BA. Sandwichist also visited Meatwagon's previous bricks and mortar incarnation, #MEATeasy, in New Cross, in March.

Photo/Chris Osburn

Last Updated 21 November 2011