Bully for you if you managed to secure a place at last month’s Meatopia event at the Open Gate Brewery. If you didn’t you should probably look away now. It was stupendous. A fervid celebration of the meeting of fire and flesh and of the meaning of that glorious transubstantiation. For days afterwards I relished the odour of smoke on me as one would the carnal musk of a new lover. Nevertheless, such succulent indulgence exacts its own price and on that day something of an epiphany was visited upon me – meat sweats are only the beginning. Along with my beef-buddies Payter and Billy, trenchermen both, I entered an advanced state of meat fugue. I felt as though mine own offals were roasting within me. We eventually blundered across an antidote in the form of strong brown liquor but this was a salutary lesson upon the perils of bovine gluttony.
After a fitful night’s sleep and having clearly learned nothing from this lesson, I began to review some of the food produced by this amazing collection of chefs the day before. Richard H. Turner’s fillet steak with bone marrow and roast langoustine was a standout simply by virtue of the flavour he managed to conjure from that lean, girlish cut. He was representing Hawksmoor, a London restaurant that launched in 2006 before becoming a highly successful chain and changing the way people think about the ‘steakhouse’ genre over there. I decide that a reasonable comparison could be drawn with FX Buckley, our own venerable steakhouse (and butcher’s) chain to assess the current state of beefeatery in Dublin.
On a recent Thursday the Crow St Location (because it’s about 25 metres from my office) is virtually full and we are pretty much the only natives in the room. To our right are two garrulous Italian men, who inform anybody who will listen that they are celebrating a divorce. They party hearty enough for me to surmise that she must have been a real piece of work. Perhaps they had just divorced each other? Elsewhere it’s mostly couples and they too are mostly tourists. Looking around the room it’s hard not to notice the omnipresent branding – on the walls, the napery, the cutlery. Only the bottom of the toilet bowls escape the logo. Certain now that we are indeed in the right place we order two well made drinks – a martini and a negroni to get things moving while we pretend that we don’t know what the order will be.
Fillet tartare when it arrives, is an exemplar of the dish, cut through with fresh horseradish, it’s nicely chopped and perfectly seasoned. I’d prefer to have the raw egg-yolk perched on top but it’s not a deal-breaker. Devilled kidneys deviate from the norm to the extent that the dish should be re-named. This old breakfast favourite should be flash-fried (devilled) in butter, with heat coming from cayenne and mustard powder. The dish here resembled a mushroom and kidney pie-filling although it ate perfectly well. From a choice of fillet, rib-eye, sirloin and rump (just like Hawksmoor, and all sold by weight) we take an 8oz sirloin and we also get a bone-in ribeye (Côte de Boeuf) for contrast. Both arrive cooked exactly as requested, rare and medium rare respectively, although I’d have preferred to see more evidence of the ferocious heat of the charcoal-powered Josper grill on the exteriors. The mineral tang of grass fed beef is evident too although I wonder if the operators are underestimating their clientele by not offering any cuts aged beyond 28 days. Béarnaise and red-wine jus are note perfect, while the beef-dripping chips are oddly pallid. My creamed spinach was nothing of the sort. This was some wilted spinach with cream poured on top and not the rich, spoonable puree that one has come to expect. Vanilla creme brûlée was exactly as it should be.
Service throughout was unimpeachable, warm and attentive with none of the ersatz formality you might find at Shanahan’s on the Green. With a very serviceable Primitivo from a well chosen list the tab comes to around €150. Judged against the very best, say the bone-in NY Strip at Keith Mc Nally’s Minetta Tavern in Greenwich Village, there is a discernible disparity in depth of flavour between the steaks but you will admittedly notice a disparity in price-point too. I suspect that this has more to do with longer aging than anything else. A5* grade Kobe, Australian Wagyu, USDA grain-fed, 8-year old Galician milkers – I’ve eaten them all, from coast to coast, with ‘taters and toast. The product here could stand proud in their midst. This is a solid, dependable restaurant which, alongside The Chameleon offers the best argument to spend money dining in Temple Bar.
Words: Conor Stevens
Photo: Killian Broderick
FX Buckley
Crow St, Temple Bar
(01) 671 1248
