Our review of Urban Grill at Bar Twenty One in Ipswich

Last month, Urban Grill Street Food and Bar Twenty One in St Nicholas Street decided to team up to serve a variety of street foods ranging from souvlakis and burgers to ribs, wings and chicken tenders.

I went back there with two friends to see what the food and service was like.

Gareth Harper, Chris Collins, Nicole Watkins and Neil Hawes, owners of Bar Twenty One and Urban Grill (Image: Tom Cann)

Walking in, the venue was very spacious and clean with people slowly entering the venue getting ready for the quiz night.

Due to it being a bar, it was a go-up-and-order situation which allowed us enough time to look at the menu and settle ourselves.

The menu has a range of typical street foods on offer. I went for the five chicken tenders on a bed of seasoned skin on fries with a choice of sauce coating the chicken and chips. I opted for buffalo sauce.

The Porky burger (Image: Tom Cann)

My friend went for the hog and hen burger, which is a chicken burger with pulled pork.

MORE: Bar Twenty One in Ipswich and Urban Grill to serve new food

My other pal wanted one of the souvlaki wraps, but unfortunately they didn't have them on this particular night, so also went for the hog and hen burger.

We also had a tapas dish each, which is three for £15. We got the Korean pork belly chunks, tomato and mozzarella arancini and the salt and pepper calamari.

The tapas we received, with the calamari, arancini and pork belly chunks (Image: Tom Cann)

The food took about half an hour to arrive and the first thing to note is the presentation.

All the dishes came in a bowl, with the tapas dishes coming in a little ceramic shallow bowl, and the main dishes coming in a cardboard deeper bowl.

This was initially a bit of a surprise just because when you go out for food, whether it be a restaurant or a pub, you normally expect it to come on a plate.

The Hog and Hen burger with chips and coleslaw (Image: Tom Cann)

But then it's street food - that's what Urban Grill serves - so it fitted the theme for the food to come in something like a cardboard bowl.

The issue with this presentation was immediately evident though as the burger needed to be moved out of the bowl to get to the chips, so the napkin was used as a burger holder - putting the napkin largely out of action.

The food, however, was tasty and filling. Starting with the chicken tenders: it was pure chicken breast cooked so it was succulent and was coated in a lovely buttermilk coating.

The chicken tenders and chip with buffalo sauce (Image: Tom Cann)

The chips were well done and with the buffalo sauce, which went over both the tenders and the chips, everything had a spicy flavour to them.

The burger had a very generous piece of chicken, with a good amount of pulled pork, salad and sauce inside. 

The chicken was perfectly fried and coated and the bun was lightly toasted on both sides.

One of the tapas options (Image: Tom Cann)

My friend said she would go back purely for the burger.

The coleslaw was creamy and a good addition but it was quite a small pot.

All three tapas dishes were delicious. The arancini you could tell was fresh, with the mozzarella having a good 'cheese pull' to it.

The calamari was well cooked and tasty, with the sauce provided adding good flavour and the pork belly was served in good bite size chunks, cooked perfectly with a little cracking on top of each chunk.

Urban Grill opened last month inside Bar Twenty One (Image: Tom Cann)

Service was friendly and quick and because of it being quiz night, we were also given a free cup of popcorn.

As a whole you can expect to spend about £12 to £16 for a main meal of food, which is more than reasonable in the current climate considering a meal at Burger King can cost near that.

If you are in a little group and plan to do what we did by having a main and a little tapas each, it will cost you just less than £20... cheaper than a Five Guys meal.

Urban Grill Street Food is well worth the money. The food was hot, fresh and tasted delicious and we all left feeling very full. I recommend it to anyone and will be returning again to try something else from the menu.

The burger with chips and coleslaw (Image: Tom Cann)

Our food reviews are always independent. They are the opinion of the reviewer based on their experience of the venue when they visited. The establishment is not aware of our visit, is not informed we intend to write a review and bills are paid by the reviewer.

The choice of places reviewed is also independent and is not based on venues which do or do not advertise in our publications.