BEAR Dublin

To my limited knowledge a Bear is either a large, sometimes angry woodland animal or a big bearded homosexual man. I think it was the latter they were alluding to when they named this restaurant.

BEAR Dublin opened in a blaze of publicity earlier this year as a collaboration between concept restaurant kingpin Joe Macken and Irish rugby star Jamie Heaslip. Jamie has caught a fair amount of flack in the media about this with many commentators saying he should stick to the rugby. I however think that’s nonsense, why shouldn’t he open a restaurant? His huge public profile guarantees publicity and if the place is any good the punters will keep coming back. It’s a no brainer and a canny move on himself and Macken’s part.

The concept of the restaurant is absolutely fantastic. The whole menu is built around weird and wonderful steaks that have fallen out of fashion due to the public’s infatuation with tender, flavourless and due to their popularity, expensive meat.  Names like Bavette, Onglet and London Broil jump off the menu screaming at you to order them. Being the slightly strange person that I am I’ve gone searching for these steaks in butcher shops only to be told they don’t have them, or in some cases, they don’t exist!

Having been in the same venue in its previous Crackbird incarnation the place hadn’t changed much at all. Joe’s signature hanging lightbulbs and unisex toilets are a standard in all of his joints but this was slightly more refined, lots of polished brass lifting it from the junkie cool of its youth into something more grown up and less extrovert. Great sounds on the stereo too, who doesn’t love disco? The standard high stools and communal tables remain though which clearly mark it out as his personal restaurant design aesthetic.

The menu reads brilliantly, lots of the aforementioned steaks to share coupled with starters all served with toast. We kicked things off with two jam jars (yes, more jam jars) of Joe’s now famous lemonade. Whilst being delicious it wasn’t as good as I remembered. I noticed the barman pouring the lemonade out of a beer tap which might go some way to explaining this, Joe has obviously “gone stadium” and is mass producing his lemonade on an industrial scale. It honestly looked like the barman was topping up pints of Guinness. Good stuff though and he should probably think about selling it in off-licenses.

Deciding to share a starter due to the incoming meat festival we opted for the “Hen Egg & Truffled Mayonnaise”. This was incredible. While only really being a poshed up egg mayo on toast it certainly added up to more than the sum of its parts. Part of me wanted to dislike this starter as adding truffle oil to a dish (if you think you’re getting fresh truffle for under a fiver you’re totally insane) is the mark of a pretty lazy chef, adding a “luxury” ingredient to make something boring more interesting. It was delicious though, like the best egg mayo you’ve ever had; creamy and comforting, and everyone likes putting things on toast. Top marks for presentation also.

After nearly 30 minutes of waiting our Onglet finally arrived, in fairness to the excellent staff they told us there was a delay in the kitchen. It came out bloody as hell (as requested) and there was zero “blood” on the plate, this is a very good sign, it means the meat has been rested properly and not just flung from the grill to the plate. If you are ordering something like this you have to accept you’re not going to glide through it with a butter knife. The best way to eat it is to cut the meat against the grain of the muscle, look closely if you’re eating one and you’ll see what I mean. The meat itself was excellent, obviously chewy but with unbelievable flavour, a worthwhile trade-off. A slightly frustrating side issue is that due to the strange shape of the meat parts of it are raw and parts are well-done, this is obviously no fault of the restaurants though. A brilliant and slightly different steak, highly recommended.

We ordered the steak with three different sauces: Horseradish Bechemel, Chimichurri and Peppercorn Whiskey Butter. None of these were above average but I suppose you shouldn’t really need sauce with big flavoured proteins, or maybe I’m making excuses.

Sides consisted of the now famous “Million Dollar Fries” and “Cheese N’Onion Rings”. When I first heard about the Million Dollar Fries they sounded like pure genius. I thought Joe must be the Mozart of Maris Piper, the idea coming to him in a dream or like when alcoholics refer to having “a moment of clarity”. Deep fried potato gratin speaks to me, deeply. How could you not love the idea of thinly sliced potato, layered between a garlic cream sauce, deep fried to perfection.  These weren’t perfection though, my heart sank.  The sauce was far too rich and the potato, while appearing crispy, wasn’t nearly crispy enough. They were far from terrible but unfortunately never reached the heights I expected. The onion rings were decent if a little heavy on the Pecorino.

BEAR Dublin is good but not brilliant. The concept is fantastic and Dublin certainly needs more of this kind of thing so kudos to Jamie and Joe.  I can tell there is a great restaurant in there somewhere, the slight creases just need to be ironed out. Total bill was €55 and that isn’t bad value for what we had. Go and check it out for yourself, it’s not just for big bearded homosexuals.

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