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WHEN YOU THINK of a côte de boeuf in Dublin, one place tends to come to mind. Etto. The city’s beloved, perfectly formed little bistro, which looks French but has a distinct Italian accent, opened by Simon Barrett and Liz Matthews on Merrion Row in 2013.
Though the staff have changed regularly over the years, so too the menu with the seasons, Etto is impressively consistent. The most consistent thing being its enduring sharing steak, which has never left the menu – the success of which spurred many other restaurants around the city to hitch a côte to their own menus.
Now, it’s far from a 30oz steak I was reared — I was a Birds Eye chicken dippers kid — but the côte de boeuf is an undeniable thing of beauty for greedy carnivores: a Desperate Dan-sized, bone-in rib-eye, cut thickly to share between two, with sauces ’n’ sides, paired with something just as delicious in the glass; Etto’s wonderful wine list is like catnip to oenophiles.
It used to come with their signature hashed ‘Lyonnaise’ potatoes, tumbled around caramelised onions and crisped garlic, and a silky, fatty, bold and aromatic Bordelaise sauce. Sometimes it’s with a brown butter béarnaise, sometimes garlicky fried potatoes or triple-cooked, beef dripping chips. Often there’s a virtuous green alongside, like a vinaigrette-dressed cos salad or creamed spinach.
Many may not have clocked Etto’s subtle change over the last year from a bone-in côte to a boneless Delmonico. Still a similar rib-eye cut (from Peter Hannan’s salt chambers in Moira), but a switch that may have proved kinder to the kitchen’s margins.
I have a core memory of the first Etto côte I ever enjoyed a decade ago, right up at the bar, which I hold firm to be one of the best counter seats in the city. I can still taste the seared, salty crust and tender, medium-rare middle, the rich, sticky jus and onion-y potatoes. As it endures on the menu, I don’t have to resign it to memory. I can drop in as often as I please to recreate it. Even better, Barrett and Matthews’ two other restaurants, Uno Mas and Lena, also serve the dish.
It’s a curious case, the côte. It used to represent the ultimate in dining democracy, a price so digestible for what eats like a lavish feast. The sharing steak is the antidote to the small plates epidemic, where it’s easier for restaurants to make more per head. Sure, you’re compromising on splitting a main, yet there’s enough eating in it that you could comfortably skip starters and desserts and head home feeling full but, crucially, not feeling fleeced.
But in this cost-of-everything crisis, steak — whatever ounce or cut — has skyrocketed. In 2015, Etto’s côte set you back €58. By 2018 it rose to €65. In the last few years, that price has leapt to €84 and now sits at €89, not because Etto is an outlier. In fact, its pricing remains one of the most competitive in the city. The sharing steak isn’t disappearing, but the value it once represented is vanishing.
Finding a sub-€100 sharing côte in Dublin is not necessarily easy anymore. Take the modern steakhouses first: Fire on Dawson Street serves a gigantic 35oz with salad, potatoes and sauces for €115.
Marco Pierre White’s steakhouse on Dawson Street serves a 32oz for €135. Asador is €110 in both its Haddington Road and Lennan’s Yard locations, while Brookwood on Baggot Street serves a 32oz tomahawk for €130.
Then, the price per gram or ounce model. FX Buckley uses ex-dairy beef for their côte at €15 per 100g, so for a fairly standard 24oz (680g) you’re inching over €100, though it includes a whole sharing board of chips, mash, seasonal veg, mushrooms, onions and several sauces. Hawksmoor follows a similar structure, €16 per 100g, so for that same 24oz you’re sitting closer to €110. Bovinity on Capel Street also prices per ounce on the day but typically upwards of €100 for 28oz and beyond.
Newer openings are also in the mix. Ashtons in Clonskeagh is €118 while Díon prices their 28oz John Stone côte at €130 to match the rooftop height.
What will come as no surprise is that some of the best deals sit beyond the city centre. Woodruff in Stepaside prices their 24oz at €95. Mamo in Howth, run by ex-Etto staffer Jess D’Arcy, serves theirs for €92. Orwell Road in Rathgar keeps its JJ Young côte with bordelaise and sides at €89, though on Sunday ‘steak’ night throws in a bottle of wine for €110 total.
Eleven, perched above wine Mecca Whelehan’s Wines in Loughlinstown, keeps a 24oz on the menu daily for €91 but cuts it to €75 on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. The Butcher Grill in Ranelagh, Eleven’s sibling site within John Farrell’s stable, serves a 24oz côte for €95 but cuts it to €80 on Mondays and Tuesdays.
What used to be the great leveller in Dublin dining is quickly becoming its last aristocrat.
The côte used to be a clever, economical choice, now it’s veering into luxury. A table full of small plates doesn’t come close to scratching the itch as satisfyingly as a côte cooked to perfection, dragged through béarnaise, followed by forkfuls of hashed potatoes. The côte has graduated to a rare treat, and I know which bar seat I’m keeping warm for it.
Patrick Hanlon is an Irish food, travel and culture journalist, and is one half of the award-winning duo GastroGays. He is the author of a new food column, The Feeder’s Digest at TheJournal.ie. More on Instagram.
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