IF you’ve ever eaten at Jenkins & Sons, in Penn Hill, you’ll know the place is all about the meat.

Steaks, burgers and ribs, as well as fresh fish, dominate the menu, all served with simple accompaniments to enhance the flavours of the main attraction.

Unlike its sister restaurant, the beachside Urban Reef, Jenkins & Sons is busier in winter months, serving comfort food and warming dishes. The menu is adapted during the summer, with meat cooked slightly differently for a lighter taste, but the flavours remain the same.

Much of the restaurant’s signature taste comes from the use of its Josper oven, which uses only charcoal and intense heat to cook.

It’s something head chef James Hodson, who has been at Jenkins & Sons for seven months, after more than two years as a sous chef at Urban Reef, is a huge fan of.

“That’s how the food should be cooked,” he explains, “that’s the way it was hundreds of years ago. That’s the way we all started to cook.”

The other main ingredient, pardon the pun, is the good quality meat and fish James, 37, sources locally.

“It’s always seasonal and local,” he says, “all our meat and fish pretty much comes from this county. All the fish comes from the south coast.

“The meat, if it doesn’t from Dorset, it comes from the surrounding counties, and it’s all from the southern part of England.

Food miles is a big thing for this company.

“Nothing comes from overseas apart from lemons and limes, that you can’t get.”

James and the team, who change the menu twice a year, and the specials daily, are keen to get Jenkins & Sons on the map as a “destination” restaurant.

“It’s a steakhouse - we go for fish and meat cooked over charcoal. If you want to go for a good piece of fish or meat, you come here,” he explains.

“Every weekend we have a sharing steak on, a big 1kg piece of meat to share. Apart from the normal menu we’ve got a couple of steaks on and we’ve always got big cuts of meat, pork chops and simple garnishes.”

James’ Signature Dish

Cowboy ribeye on the bone

The ribeye steak is served with sauce, mixed salad and chips.

“It’s quite simple, but it’s all about the steak,” says James.

James cooks the steak in the Josper oven for about eight minutes, but says a similar flavour can be achieved at home.

“Either cook on the barbecue or a really hot pan,” he says, “it’s all about heat. You could throw some smoke chips on the barbecue and cook it. That will create the smoke.”

The other key to a good steak is letting it rest once it’s cooked, he adds.

“You don’t need to do anything else to it, just as long as you’ve got a good quality bit of meat. You get what you pay for.”