Why don't they just go to Pizza Express?

August 11, 2010 6:13 AM

In London there's a chain of restaurants called Aberdeen/Angus Steakhouse - dated decor, expensive, scorned by locals but seemingly extremely popular with tourists. Are there equivalents in other cities?
posted by mippy to Food & Drink (33 answers total)

Response by poster: Here's a sample review
posted by mippy at 6:15 AM on August 11, 2010

Uno's
posted by nitsuj at 6:18 AM on August 11, 2010

Outback Steakhouse, Lone Star Steakhouse, Red Lobster... we've got a number of chains of that ilk in the States. Overpriced, oversalted, stuck in 1995 for all eternity... but always JAM-PACKED for some reason.
posted by julthumbscrew at 6:36 AM on August 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Morton's Steakhouse and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Both are ridiculously overpriced chains that cater to tourists, mostly of the expense account variety. Even though Ruth's Chris did start here in New Orleans, it hasn't really been local for quite awhile.
posted by CheeseLouise at 6:38 AM on August 11, 2010

I think Hard Rock Cafe qualifies. (see also: Planet Hollywood on a lesser scale, Señor Frog's in tropical tourist locations...) Seems like tourists flock to them like white on rice.
posted by castlebravo at 6:39 AM on August 11, 2010

Peter Luger's or Carmine's in NYC?
Ben's Chili Bowl in DC?
Any urban cupcake shop...

Any restaurant that describes itself as famous, has a huge sign, or a nice view is also almost certain to be bad. Famous locations also usually ruin restaurants. I think NYC genuinely takes the cake for tourist trap restaurants that look great, but serve awful food. Many of the city's "gems" are hidden away behind small or grimy storefronts.

I used to live next to a tourist trap, and there were definitely places that were frequented (and raved about) by tourists, but untouched by locals, and vice versa. A small handful of places did manage to maintain a sort of universal appeal.

_{Somehow, I suspect that this is going to be one of the most controversial things I ever post here...}
posted by schmod at 6:41 AM on August 11, 2010

It's not answering your question, but if it helps others answer the OP: among life's great globally unanswered mysteries - up there with "Does God Exist?" and "Why is Paris Hilton still famous?" and "Why is belly button fluff always blue/grey?" Londoners are at a loss to explain how Angus Steakhouses manage to operate in ultra prime, mega rent locations and yet often have few customers besides some poor, misguided tourists.

Also: Mippy: your review appears to be of a Tenerife offshoot. Time Out is amazingly polite about the Haymarket branch.
posted by MuffinMan at 6:48 AM on August 11, 2010

Response by poster: Muffinman - if you check the Wikipedia page several links to reviews by UK newspapers emerge.

I know if I went to New York I'd want to try a hot dog, eat in Chinatown, try a proper pizza and go to a diner, but steak doesn't seem an obvious British thing that might sucker in tourists.
posted by mippy at 7:00 AM on August 11, 2010

A few years ago I was in Shanghai and usually ate in these awesome out of the way places. But one day we were taken to some 'famous' place on the Bridge of Nine Turns in the old part of Shanghai. It was the only place on the whole trip that was meh. I can't remember what the place was called but it was empty of local and had only obvious tourists eating there. Also heavily featured were pictures of Bill Clinton when he ate there several years previously.

Here in the Denver area there is The Fort. I'm not sure if it's only a tourist place but I've heard mixed reviews about it. Also, a few years ago there was some big summit (G8?) and a whole bunch of presidents and prime ministers ate there.

Sometimes I wonder if it is the fate of presidents to eat at 'famous' but crappy places.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 7:02 AM on August 11, 2010

I know if I went to New York I'd want to try a hot dog, eat in Chinatown, try a proper pizza and go to a diner, but steak doesn't seem an obvious British thing that might sucker in tourists.

Witness the Red Lobster, TGI Friday's, Applebee's, and so forth in Times Square. Lots of Joe and Jane Cornfeds on vacation in the big city don't want to try new or local things. They want the same familiar junk they eat at home. What's less exotic than steak?
posted by uncleozzy at 7:16 AM on August 11, 2010

I went to a Jensen's Bøfhus in Stockholm that I assumed was the Swedish version. I also went to Block House in Berlin that I feared was going to be the same, but the steak there was actually really nice, so I'm not quite sure if it was or not.
posted by corvine at 7:16 AM on August 11, 2010

I know the question is asking for equivalents and that I cannot help with but that Time Out review is shocking to me in its tameness - 'the restaurant is utterly comfortable and laid back' - the existence of Angus / Aberdeen Steakhouses is something that has troubled my mind and has a tendancy to send me into an existential crisis of L'Étranger proportions.

The cheapness of the decor, the fishbowl floor to ceiling glass frontage that forces passers-by to witness the legalised theft and humiliation of visitors from foreign climes. Not that I have ever had the misfortunte to eat in one, but having once reviewed the menu and been tempted to run o to an optician with much haste to ensure my eyesight was still functioning correctly, I can only summise that these establishments are the Masochist version of Masonic Lodges.

It goes without saying that the food is terrible, the decor apalling, hygiene wanting, staff surly and really the world would be a better place without the existence of said establishments. If I was artistically inclined I could envisage putting forward a mock steakhouse frontage into the Tate and coming away with the Turner.
posted by numberstation at 7:20 AM on August 11, 2010 [3 favorites]

Peter Luger's

You sir are a fool. Famous /=/ tourist trap.

Carmine's is a tourist trap. Carnegie Deli is a tourist trap. Grimaldi's is a tourist trap (a shadow of what it was before the Bamonte's bought it)

A lot of the famous tourist traps in NYC have closed - Tavern on the Green, Russian Tea Room, Rainbow Room.

Tourist Trappy Local Chain for NY - Sbarro
posted by JPD at 7:25 AM on August 11, 2010 [2 favorites]

Steakhouses used to be a big dinner treat for Brits in the '60s, especially those with long memories of food rationing and powdered egg substitute after WW2. The Leicester Square location of that Angus Steakhouse is clearly what's drawing in the tourists, who might not know they can get a decent "British" dinner at a pub.

In the late 60s, my mother worked at a Berni Inn (link to Nigel Slater reminiscences) where the menu featured prawn cocktail, steak, and Black Forest gateau. Classy!
posted by vickyverky at 7:43 AM on August 11, 2010

Carmine's is lousy, but trust me, TONS of people who live in New York eat there. To be honest, I'm not sure New York City will give you a lot of good answers, since New Yorkers, many of whom don't cook, tend to be pretty unselective about where they'll eat out. I mean, per Google Maps there are 9 Applebee's in NYC and only three of them are in places with any kind of tourist density.

Carnegie Deli is probably a good answer. Russian Tea Room probably WAS a good answer.

For Chicago -- maybe some of the ultra-famous deep dish pizza places? But I think people from Chicago really do have an inexplicable taste for the stuff.

Oh, I've got one! Durgin Park in Boston. Mediocre "old New England" food with a "mean waiter" schtick. I'm pretty sure locals don't eat there, or at least I didn't when I lived there.
posted by escabeche at 7:50 AM on August 11, 2010

Response by poster: Someone who can paint better than I can really needs to do a version of Nighthawks at an Aberdeen Steakhouse. I took an amazing photo through one but can't find it on Flickr just now.

I went to TGI Friday on my first ever trip to London. I grew up somewhere where if you wanted to eat out, you went to the Italian restaurant on your birthday that put sparklers in a cake, or to Pizza Hut. Everywhere else was McDonald's and pizza takeaways - nowhere to have a proper sit-down knife-and-fork meal.
posted by mippy at 7:57 AM on August 11, 2010

Bookbinders in Philadelphia used to be like that but it closed. I only ever ate there once when some out of state relatives insisted they wanted to go there.
posted by interplanetjanet at 8:00 AM on August 11, 2010

How about the suburban mall style restaurants on 34th and 42nd Streets in Manhattan (NYC)? I'm talking about TGIF's, McDonald's, ugh even Sizzler and Red Lobster. Those 2 streets are in the middle of midtown, aka Tourist Mecca, and it saddens me that some people apparently come to New York and never eat in any of the really awesome restaurants here...
posted by jacquilinala at 8:04 AM on August 11, 2010

I have been convinced for years that Aberdeen Angus steakhouses are a money laundering operation hiding in plain sight. They are always empty when I walk past.
posted by dmt at 8:06 AM on August 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Should have previewed again before I posted! yeah, what uncleozzy said :)
posted by jacquilinala at 8:13 AM on August 11, 2010

Peter Luger's

You sir are a fool. Famous /=/ tourist trap.

Yeah, yeah. I knew I'd make somebody angry at that one :-) It's not necessarily a *tourist* trap per se, but it seems exorbitantly overrated for what it is. (That said, they sell their steak sauce in local grocery stores, and it is most definitely worth every penny)

Tourist Trappy Local Chain for NY - Sbarro

*Scratches head.* Aren't most Sbarros found in malls and rest stops? I always thought the "draw" of Sbarros was that it's cheap, easy, and tolerable. Never knew the place had any kind of pretensions of being something "greater." Famous Famiglia is a small step up, but does seem to pretend to be better than it actually is.

Also: going back to the UK: I'd also consider Pizza Express to be a bit of a trap, and an expensive one at that. It was always packed, but I never knew of anybody who ate there regularly.
posted by schmod at 8:14 AM on August 11, 2010

you denigrate Luger's as overrated (it is BTW - but that doesn't make it a tourist trap)

and then call Sbarro "tolerable" well I think we know where you stand.
posted by JPD at 8:21 AM on August 11, 2010 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Schmod - loads of people eat at Pizza Express regularly. There are branches all over the suburbs as well as central London (and other cities too), plus they do a lot of voucher deals at the moment. It's super-popular with middle-class families, as it's kid-friendly, nicer than Pizza Hut, and (if memory of PH serves) more or less the same price.
posted by mippy at 8:36 AM on August 11, 2010

Seconding CheeseLouise, and adding the Copeland's restaurants to the lists - with the noble exception of Popeye's, of course.
posted by honeydew at 9:06 AM on August 11, 2010

When some of my friends in rural Ohio want Italian food, they go to an Olive Garden. Having said that, their soup, salad & breadsticks $5 all you can eat lunch is value for the price, but authentic Italian it's not.

Pizza Express is, imo, over-priced and over-rated. I used to eat there regularly with a group of friends on a Thursday evening, where we'd get a meal for about £12 a head. Then we noticed the plates were getting smaller and the price was creeping up until it was nearer £16-£18 a head, so we stopped going there. Poor value for money, and terrible pizzas (but then, I've eaten at DiFara in Brooklyn so nothing can ever compare with that ever, ever again).

In the late 80s or early 90s a guy I was at law school with represented some of the staff at the Aberdeen Steak restaurants in a dispute over, I think, withholding of tips or paying less than minimum wage, something like that. He said that after the stories he heard about hygiene, cost-cutting (allegedly cheap skirt steak cut into rounds and presented as 'filet', uneaten vegetables left on plates reused for other diners, etc) he would rather starve than eat there.
posted by essexjan at 9:09 AM on August 11, 2010

Peter Luger's is not a tourist trap -

but Sbarro's is. The original Sbarro deli/pizzeria on 65th St in Bensonhurst is closed, the only thing that remains are the chain stores - and the 500 pizzerias in NY called Rays are tourist traps. Even the original one, on 6th Ave and 12th St is not very good these days. Some people hunt down that original Rays thinking they are getting something special -

you want special pizza in NYC, go 8 blocks south of the original rays, to father demo square, and get some pizza at Joes
posted by Flood at 9:11 AM on August 11, 2010

When my brother lived in Boston he said Legal Seafood was more popular with tourists than with locals. Not exactly "scorned by locals", but that there were better, cheaper, and less crowded places to get seafood in Boston.
posted by TedW at 9:20 AM on August 11, 2010

I love Pizza Express. People who slam it don't know a thing about pizza. Great ingredients, a very good dough recipe freshly made, and cooked in a proper pizza oven. Very fairly priced given that they are doing it properly. God I wish there was a Pizza Express in silicon valley. Hong Kong has one, so why not here?
To get pizza as good I need to drive to San Francisco and hit up Tony's Pizza Napoletana and it's expensive and over-booked.
posted by w0mbat at 9:55 AM on August 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Geno's and Pat's occupy similar places in Philadelphia eating.
posted by joyceanmachine at 10:01 AM on August 11, 2010

In Memphis, Interstate Barbecue.
posted by box at 10:28 AM on August 11, 2010

...but seemingly extremely popular with tourists.
Actually, not anymore. Wikipedia says: "In 2001, there were about 30 outlets; about four remain open in 2010. (...) In 2008, Noble told The Times they were "upgrading and refurbishing the restaurants"." In other words: these restaurants have been going slowly out of business for years.

Why do (some) tourists end up at Aberdeen/Angus Steakhouse? I think this post at Yelp answers that: "First trip to London in 1991 and one of us wanted a steak dinner. Terrible mistake!" They have (had?) good locations and "Steak House" in their name. It really is that simple.

Are there equivalents in other cities?
There's a copycat Angus Steakhouse in Oslo, in business since the 70s. How sad is that?
posted by iviken at 12:52 PM on August 11, 2010

High tea at the Raffles Hotel, Singapore. What a waste of a meal- actually about six meals I could've had at a hawker stand.

Not a restaurant, but in Canada, it's pretty hilarious to see, say, Japanese or German tourists in Banff clamouring for bottles of maple syrup to take home. Maple syrup is Quebec. Banff is more than a thousand miles from any sugar maple trees.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 1:52 PM on August 11, 2010

When I was in Warsaw, I saw "London Steakhouse."
posted by milkrate at 11:30 PM on August 22, 2010