Knife is a lauded steak restaurant in Clapham, London, but I hadn’t heard of Knife until I saw its Makeaway menu offer when I was looking at the Lake district Farmers website for Simon Rogan’s and Jason Atherton’s make away boxes.  Lake District Framers, it turns out, is a regular supplier of meat to Knife restaurant. I dived in and ordered a box for 14th January because the menu looked so good, and the price was competitive at £95 for 2 people (for 5 courses, plus bread and petit fours).

Very little was required of me to serve up the first courses of this meal; just 5 minutes in the oven to refresh the sourdough loaf.  The bread came with a great bone marrow butter. 8/10. Then it was just a matter of opening the sealed plastic bags and serving a small selection of home cured charcuterie and “Larder pickles” (both very tasty, and the pickled gherkins had a good crunch 8/10).  A foie gras and duck terrine was very tasty, though it was quite wet. It was nicely accompanied by a Medjool date chutney, and I thought the very fine dice of carrot within the terrine was a great touch to cut though its richness. 8.5/10.  I paired these plates with a nice English sparkling rose wine, which a friend gave me for Christmas.

An interesting ‘middle course’ of Yorkshire puddings with beef bone and red wine gravy only required heating the Yorkshires for 3 minutes in the oven, and heating the gravy in a pan.  Despite my shaky hands messing up the presentation, this was a tasty plate of comfort food, with decent Yorkshires (better than Waitrose’s) and a rich yet light gravy.  8.5/10

The main course featured heritage beef New York Strip steak – a good-sized ‘sharing’ piece of meat which needed to be coloured in a pan and finished in the oven for 6 minutes, after being basted with beef fat.  It was accompanied by a ‘Stinking Bishop Mac & Cheese’ which didn’t have as much flavour as I expected, a corn ‘creme brûlée’ topped with popcorn, which was sweet, delicious and innovative, lovely roasted onion and grilled cabbage. The brûlée, vegetables and pasta only needed 5 to 10 minutes in the oven. Everything was completed by a green sauce (sic), a peppercorn sauce and fresh watercress.  Absolutely everything, down to the seasoning, was provided, and I thought this was an excellent main course, definitely of restaurant standard.  I’m only taking one pint off the score, for the lack of taste in the pasta. 9/10

Dessert of baked cheesecake with rhubarb and honeycomb did not require any reheating and it was easy to plate it in an attractive way.  I’m not a fan of baked cheesecake, and not really a fan of desserts, but this was a nice dish with good fresh flavours.  As a diabetic I could moderate my sugar intake by having less of the honeycomb. 7.5/10

I found this to be a very good and enjoyable make-away meal, and very good value, right from the bread and butter through to lovely chocolates at the end.  Everything was very easy to finish and plate, yet the end result was undeniably of restaurant quality.  There wasn’t an instructional video to link to, but the written instructions were very clear, so I didn’t think extra guidance was needed.

My overall score is 8.5/10 and I shall definitely order from Knife again, and look to visit its restaurant in Clapham when I’m able to.