Andy Carroll powered up the football rumour mill last week when he put his Chigwell home up for sale, adding fire to the suspicion that soon he may move on from West Ham.

In doing so, the former England striker also sparked a great deal of interest from the interior design world.

What is the purpose, the internet asked itself, of a five foot long model of a sausage dog in his hallway?

Why does the ponytailed goalscorer need six corner sofas and a dinner table capable of seating the Hammers' first team along with his wife?

What is that large mirror hanging above Andy Carroll’s bed for?

There are no obvious answers to such questions, and there does not need to be.

Andy Carroll’s £5.5m, velour-on-the-walls home makes complete sense once the enigmatic football star and his Towie wife Billi Mucklow are put at its centre.

So to is The Gallery - South Woodford’s newest bar and grill and a short taxi ride away from the Carroll family mansion- best understood and enjoyed unquestioningly, and in the company of its charming waiter Kane.

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The Gallery Bar and Grill (above)

Andy Carroll's bedroom(below) credit: Rightmove

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The Gallery’s décor is immediately familiar in its similarity to a number of restaurants and bars popular with the Epping Forest football and Towie crowd, such as Loughton’s Tom, Dick and Harry and the jewel-in-Chigwell’s-crown that is Sheesh.

Bright blue velvety sofas provide a relaxed lounge area down from the well stocked bar, where you can sit on mock zebra skin covered chairs beneath a large canvas of Prosecco glasses chinking.

A baby grand piano stands to the side of the restaurant, sadly un-played during our visit.

In the largest of two partially separated dining areas gold chain curtains provide an air of seclusion for three family sized circular booths; not quite capable of seating a starting 11 perhaps, but spacious enough for my companion and I to stretch out on a quiet Wednesday evening.

For starters I tucked into a heritage beetroot salad with buttermilk dressing, pickled mushrooms and truffle.

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Round the padded seat circle from me a dish of seared scallops caught with the hand of a diver and resting atop saffron, chorizo risotto and piquillo peppercorn was quickly finished off. Both were elegantly plated up and, despite being gentle on the stomach, full of flavour.

While still packing a punch, our mains fell on the complete other end of the density spectrum.

Spinach and ricotta ravioli with wild mushrooms and truffle cream for me; the utterly, absurdly opulent and painfully anti-kosher combination of a 280g fillet steak accompanied by half a lobster for my companion.

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The Josper Grill that sits proudly at the heart of The Gallery’s kitchen lived up to its £16,000 price tag I was told, in it and the chef’s remarkable ability to encase the succulence of well-reared beef within a near-crisp outer layer.

Meantime pale ales, glasses of Rioja and a panna cotta came and went.

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The food and atmosphere in the restaurant was good, but what made our evening exceptional was the staff.

From the moment we walked through the doors on a achingly cold weekday night we were looked after.

Kane, our 19-year-old waiter from Leytonstone, shepherded us to our table and enthused about the restaurant once we got there, relishing in giving us menu suggestions and explaining why he left his previous job to work there.

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It is lovely to see someone really enjoy their job.

In doing so so earnestly Kane elevated The Gallery: from a stylistically discordant place with Dadaist paintings of meerkats in military uniform on the wall that might otherwise seem brash, to a genuinely fun and entertaining place to have a meal.