Restaurant Review - Brookwood
Saturday 19 April 2014
‘Brookwood’ is a new eatery on busy buzzy Lower Baggot Street. I can’t say I quite get the significance of the slightly rural folksy name in the center of the city, particularly as it is a sleek steak and seafood house, rather than of the ‘fumble and forage’ Nordic style ethos, but then it is an offshoot of the slightly wistful sounding Mulberry Garden in Donnybrook. One way or another a lot of dosh has been spent on decking out this tall building by way of lashings of wood, marble floored landings, tan ‘saddleback’ leather seating, swirly grey cement walls and great lighting features.
The ground floor is compact grill bar style with open kitchen, where you can pop up on a high stool at a shelf around the walls or better still grab a booth. Upstairs the main dining room is ‘classy clubby’ in a style worthy of Somerset Maugham with bevelled mirrored walls, 1940’s style little lamps on each table, a back wall adorned with bottles and soda siphons whilst a plantation style fan hangs keeps the temperature cool.
Opening at noon, they are running right through the day from lunch into dinner. A rather good idea perhaps with all those nearby hungry politicians who, tiring of their subsidised canteen fare, might need mid afternoon nosh to revive them. In truth, late afternoon ‘linner’ suited friend Paul and myself very well too, my having had earlier commitments in town.
Ensconced in a booth, we were offered both a lunch menu and ALC menu. Starters on the ALC €6.50 - €15 offered a selection of ‘jars’ holding combinations such as aubergine and tomato; chicken liver parfait et al. These were priced at the lower end of the scale whilst those in the €10 - €15 bracket included grilled marrow and caramelized onions, Brookwood sandwich, and smoked salmon and soda. Pork belly and crackling (€10) for Paul proved a generous length of melt in the mouth pig in a teriyaki style sauce draped across a brace of chargrilled asparagus tips scattered with crackling curls. This was also on the lunchtime offerings with chips and salad at €12. A ‘crab and egg mayo jar’ was a really good caper enhanced piquant mélange sitting at the bottom of the jar which, on opening, revealed two little crisp crostini leaves peaking up out of the ‘ground’.
Steaks run from a 10oz flatiron at €18 to a 28oz Porterhouse at €55 and there is a burger at €12. Seafood swims in at €12.50 with a pot of mussels, moving up to a skillet of prawns at €18, fish in a bag at €20 and on to a fresh seafood platter and black sole on the bone, €32/€34. There are smart spuds (€4) to beat the band, from smoked mash to truffle mash, Dauphinoise to paprika fries. You can also get your veggies in abundance at €4.50 and sauces €1.50/€2. You can even have ‘batch and butter’ and a glass of milk – both at €2 – perfect for, as Jackie Healy Rae said, the real men ‘who eat their dinner in the middle of the day.’ However, all of these delicious sides can tot up fairly smartly. We, however, were working between the two so, from the lunch menu, Paul had a cracking juicy 10-oz rib-eye steak with rosemary and Parmesan fries at €20 (€26 for the 10oz rib-eye steak on the ALC ). I had a real treat in a half lobster (€25) bathed in garlic butter, served in a black cast iron dish, including my choice of paprika fries. We also had a side of buttery spiced sweetcorn – bring your bib – at €4.50.
Desserts included apple pie and sticky toffee pudding. Orange cheesecake (€7.50) of the cooked variety was dry – the only weak spot. On the other hand they didn’t charge us for superb Tipperary Organic icecreams – chocolate truffle and strawberry and cream. With a bottle of Guerilla Viognier 2012 (€33) and two coffees (€5.75) our bill with optional service came to €120.25. Tom Doyle is the chef here, service was charming and the food was perfectly executed. It’s a high end American style steak house but they do have something for everyone.
I think it’s a ‘winner all right’.
Brookwood,
No 141 Baggot Street Lower,
Dublin. 2.
Tel: (01) 661-9366
First published in the Sunday Independent.