Juke & Loe, Sheffield: Guardian food critic Jay Rayner praises 'bargain' lunch menu at Ecclesall Road restaurant

A top food critic has heaped praise upon a Sheffield restaurant and revealed a simple way for diners to make big savings.
Juke & Loe on Ecclesall Road in Sheffield, where Guardian food critic Jay Rayner praised the 'delightful and impressive cooking' after visiting to sample the lunch menuJuke & Loe on Ecclesall Road in Sheffield, where Guardian food critic Jay Rayner praised the 'delightful and impressive cooking' after visiting to sample the lunch menu
Juke & Loe on Ecclesall Road in Sheffield, where Guardian food critic Jay Rayner praised the 'delightful and impressive cooking' after visiting to sample the lunch menu

The Guardian’s Jay Rayner, who is a regular judge on BBC show MasterChef, visited Juke & Loe on Ecclesall Road.

He described how he enjoyed a three-course lunch there for £30 – much cheaper than dinner, when he said mains alone are priced £24-£30 – writing ‘the real bargains are found at lunchtime’.

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The salt and chilli squid and crispy duck salad starters were ‘perfectly competent’ but it was the mains which left him rhapsodising about the ‘delightful and impressive cooking’.

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The plaice dish, he said, was ‘bliss’ to eat, while the braised beef check had him eulogising about the ‘lip-smacking meaty sauce’ which he called a ‘joy to pour on to the plate’.

“There’s nothing coy or understated about any of this. It’s bold cooking designed to satisfy rather than impress with its own cleverness,” he wrote.

The desserts did not let the side down, either, with the critic calling the honey parfait and chocolate delice ‘equally delightful’.

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He said there were merits to eating out in the evening, when diners are typically treated to a ‘more developed, filigreed expression of the kitchen’s art’ and get ‘more stuff on the plate’.

However, summing up the joys of lunchtime dining at Juke & Loe, he wrote: “If you can slack off from work and tell yourself all the good self-justifying stories and seriously investigate your inner louche, it’s also a very nice place to be. Today, I win at lunch.”