http://www.christophersgrill.com/

The restaurants we’ve tried for the GCSS so far have been mid-range affairs. The sort where you might not expect an exceptional salad dish but hope you’ll find an undiscovered diamond. Or at least, that was the plan. Sadly we’ve not have much joy with our quest, so we thought it was time to move up a gear and try somewhere pricier.

Many moons ago I worked in Covent Garden and loved dining at Christopher’s – some of the best steaks in London. I also remembered its salad as being an excellent one, so when I saw it had recently reopened I knew we had our venue. And more to the point, I suspected we’d have our first genuinely high score.

Despite being offered with anchovies (which I declined, though my co-reviewer kept them on), the Caesar looked amazing – a perfect starter portion in an elegant angled bowl. And no danger of too little dressing this time; if anything, we were concerned it might be too much.

But the thing about Caesar salads is that they should be fairly simple to do right: Romaine lettuce, parmesan, croutons and dressing in the right proportions – nothing more, nothing less. And this one, thanks be, had everything down pat. The lettuce was fresh and crisp, the slivers of cheese were tasty and in just the right amounts and the croutons were excellent – crunchy and with just a hint of smoky flavour.

And most importantly, it had a properly tangy and creamy dressing that never quite felt like too much on the taste buds (although it came pretty close once we’d reached the bottom of our portions).

So this undoubtedly gets our highest mark so far. 9/10 – probably as good as it’s going to get, unless we find a restaurant that offers Katy Perry free with its Caesar salads. And yes, the steak I had afterwards was also superb.