Restaurant review - Beef with a Difference

Imagine my consternation when I was awoken from a well earned Sunday morning sleep by Bucharest’s most infamous bon viveur, JP Vigroux, who demanded that I attend his court at Osho for Sunday lunch. He said it was outstanding, and as I am tempted to defer to the culinary opinion of Frenchies, I gave it a shot, and just wait and see what I discovered!

They modestly call themselves a steak house, but it is much, much more than that. If you enter it from the front end of the building, you will find yourself in a shop which sells all of the chophouse’s products, ‘over the counter’ at retail prices. This includes not only their extensive range of meat products, but an array of up to 20 Italian cheeses and salamis.

Add to that a rich list of French and Italian fine wines, and you have a ‘Deli where you can dine’. OK, this may sound strange, but believe me it is not! So the House has set itself up as a unique concept, but they will live or die on the quality of their product. Let us see how they perform.

The boss is Emma, the prettiest girl in Romania. She can always be found behind the bar, and if this little lush is not able to walk you around the restaurant, her father, Bora, will do it for her!

The concept of the House is close to my heart. For 20 years I have been fighting a losing battle with the abattoirs and restaurateurs to hang their beef at 4 degrees C for 20 or more days. Thank God the House does precisely that! Beef in this country is so, so very bad that crappy second rate Argentinean beef has dominated the restaurant trade here for the last seven years.

But paradoxically, Romanian beef can be excellent, only if it is treated with respect by hanging it, and allowing the fibers to relax, and in doing so the flavor intensifies.

The pride and joy of Osho is their ageing the beef in two ways, namely for 28 days in a dry, chilled controlled environment, or as an alternative, for 21 days. Both meat dishes are sold at different prices depending on their ages.

Osho is an American concept, so size portions are American, and that means they are huge. The genetic breeds of beef on offer are also the favorite bovines in the USA. And, they are also the most beautiful and glorious to behold: red, gold and cream quadropeds which taste as great as they look. We are talking about Scottish Aberdeen Angus, and French Limousin and Charolais breeds. This is beef heaven! Vegetarians should stay away, which is no problem as veggies are invariably all cat loving, irritable, unfulfilled, neurotic females who would not be able to reverse car into a parking space in Primaverii.

The only thing I did not like about Osho is the American angle. We are in Europe and I rail against anything that tries to undermine thousands of years of European culture by substituting it with shallow American patois. So, that means I don’t like ‘rib eye steak’ called by its American name of ‘New Jersey Steak’. I could go through the whole menu quoting you names such as Club Steak, or New York Steak… and on and on.

To put it another way, there is more culture in a plastic tub of yoghurt that there is in the whole of America. But having said that I must add that in three visits to Osho I have eaten my way through half the menu. That means the meat, not the paper. It is all MAGNIFICENT. I cannot fault it for either quality or for its prices.

They even have a business lunch for a ludicrously low bargain price of RON 18. What are you waiting for?

Michael Barclay

mab.media@dnt.ro

Osho, 19 Primaverii, tel 021 568 3031