Two chefs who run London restaurants Fallow, Roe and FOWL have settled the debate over whether a luxury supermarket steak is worth the premium price. Will Murray and Jack Croft each had a budget of £100 and two hours to create a steak dish, with Will shopping at Fortnum & Mason and Jack heading to Lidl.
Will spent £46 on a tomahawk steak from Fortnum & Mason, along with Maris Piper potatoes, shallots, beef stock and fat. He also bought a bottle of claret and morel mushrooms for a wild mushroom sauce. Jack, meanwhile, purchased a selection of steaks – rump, sirloin, fillet and ribeye – for a total of £28, plus ingredients for a platter including onion rings, chips and peppercorn sauce.
Back in the kitchen, Will made triple-cooked beef fat French fries and a sauce with claret and beef stock, while Jack used a cut-price air fryer from Lidl's centre aisle for onion rings and cooked his steaks with butter. When it came to plating, Will criticised Jack's piled-high offering, calling it a 'monstrosity', but Jack defended it as 'value for money'.
Two women taste-tested both dishes and unanimously preferred Will's Fortnum & Mason creation, dubbing it the 'best overall meal'. However, when the chefs tried each other's food, Will admitted that 'based on the quality of this, quality versus price, this steak is better' – referring to Jack's Lidl steak. Jack described the luxury dish as 'a lovely restaurant dish' that he would expect in Mayfair.
The final verdict was that while the Fortnum & Mason steak delivered a superior restaurant-style experience, the Lidl steak offered better value for money. Jack also sampled durian, which Will had bought as a forfeit, and described it as 'actually savoury'.
