Hawksmoor has landed in Dublin.Dublin is their 12th restaurant in the chain of high end Steakhouses which opened to a massive fan fair at the end of May 2023.Set in the former National Bank on College Green which has a massive Irish history and a great story behind it.They have taken a massive punt on the Irish market and invested what must a huge figure in this place and created 90 jobs in the meantime too.
After making the reservation I checked out their website and was delighted to read that they say about how they select their Beef...
"Before embarking on what is now a 17-year journey, we travelled the world in search of the perfect steak. And the verdict? That the best steaks come from carefully-reared cattle on small, community farms"
Which is the ethos we use are Kerrigans - working with small Indepndent producers always in my opinion leads to a far superior product but they didnt list who looks after the butchery or the aging of said stock which may give them flexibility of suppliers i suppose but it would be nice to know the aging process and who manages this for them....
We arrived 10 minutes ahead of our table time 8.20pm so we could have a pre dinner drink first.When entering the restaurant I was taken back by the vastness of the place the floor to ceiling space is huge.The bar area out front was quiet as it must sit maybe 50 people but maybe there was 10 / 15 people using it pre or post dinner.I odered the "Gold Fashioned" which is part of "The Sacred Six" which i took as the house specialities - a mix of "Teeling single grain whiskey, Kerrygold, coconut, camomile, salted honey" which i thought sounded nice and it was a lovely nod to Irish ingredients - but the waiter arrived back to say that the drink was unavailable due to some issue with the coconut being burnt in the pre dinner prep - which i thought was a bit strange but respected the honesty as s**t does happen and mistakes can be made so i opted for the Whiskey & Ginger instead to kick things off which was nice.
We were brought to our table around 8.40pm and entering the restaurant part again i was taken back by how big this place is it must sit 100+ people so they certainly must think their is a big appitite for this type of restauant in Dublin.I was surpized at the lack of smell of cooking when i walked in too.I love walking into a Steak House where you can smell or even better see and smell the meat being cooked and i felt the room was so big it lacked a bit of atmosphere and felt a bit cold.
Our waiter was super nice and friendly.We read the menu and checked our their blackbords.They use the blackboards to show diners what size cuts are available from their sharing steak options of
- Chateubriand ( Part of the fillet of generally the head of the fillet ) €160kg
- Porterhouse ( The wider part of the T-Bone section with a bigger fillet steak section ) €130kg
- T-Bone ( The section after the Porterhouse steaks are cut ) €120kg
- Bone In Rib Eye €130kg
We choose the Porterhouse steak (800g) to share and added on Pepper Sauce , Bernaise sauce , Creamed Spinach , Beef Dripping Fries and Buttered New Potatoes.
The Beef Dripping fries were reccomended by our server he also said at the time our steak would take 35/40 mins to arrive and offered us complimentry Sourdough while we waited.20 minutes later the Sourdough arrived.40 mins after that so 60 minutes from ordering and now 10pm the steak had not arrived.We had to ask our server about our mains and he apologied and headed into the kitchen.5 minutes later our food arrived - Happy Days ...starving at this point ...Steak looked incredible and we shared it out and in fairness the steak was delicious - perfectly cooked , lovely crust , very tender and flavoursome but unfortuatley the sides were a disaster - The beef dripping fries never seen any beef dripping and resembled frozen fries , the new potatoes were as hard as a brick and we had to send them back.Unfortuantley by the time a new portion arrived we had finished our steak.The waiter was very professional and could see our frustration and offered us a drink on the house and a desert too which we accepted.
Overall Score : 7.2 / 10
Cost : €192