Living Dublin Restaurants

FXB Restaurant

Pembroke Street

FXB's is the restaurant division of FX Buckley, one of Dublin's oldest and best-known family butchers. As well as the restaurants (in Pembroke Street, Temple Bar and Monkstown) and a string of shops the family also previously owned the Killiney Court Hotel and have recently entered the pub business with the purchase of Ryan's in Parkgate Street and The Castle Inn in Lord Edward Street.

I hadn't been to FXB in over 15 years, so when myself, a dancer and a bassist found ourselves hunting around Baggot St for a place to eat I was curious to see if it had changed much.

The good news is that it hasn't. If anything, the food is even better, imaginatively prepared and presented.

Set in a mews-style building on two floors and entered through a small courtyard, FXB is modern but intimate, the kind of place that a large group could fill. The menu is modern European with an emphasis on steaks and fish. When the meat comes from the family's own farm in Offaly and is prepared by one of the city's best butchers, you know the ingredients are going to be good.

There's an early-bird menu offering good value but we took our chances on the à la carte menu and the blackboard of daily specials. All three starters were deemed perfect: decent-sized portions presented in a way that whet the appetite of the eye. Mine was prawns coated in a crispy vermicelli of some kind with a sweet Thai dip - highly unusual (to me at least) and absolutely delicious. For the main course we went different ways - chicken, a swordfish steak and a Guinness and beef casserole (one of the day's specials). A side order of vegetables was green, fresh and crunchy.

Suffice to say that when the friendly and helpful waiter arrived to collect our plates there was literally not a scrap left on any of them. If we had just come off a famine ship we could not have paid a better compliment to the chef's excellence.

I don't do desserts normally, but the bassist made up for that by ordering a second crème brulée . I did taste the dancer's ice-cream, home-made with large chunks of fruit in it; it was excellent.

By Dublin standards, FXB is not expensive. We didn't have wine (the jug of water we asked for came colourfully garnished with fresh mint and melon) but three hors d'oeuvres, main courses, deserts and coffees with one side order of veg came to 90 euro. Given the quality of setting, service and, most of all, the food, FXB is excellent value and made for a top notch experience, There was no service charge so we left a well-earned tip.

If you're dining in FXB at peak times, booking is probably advisable. You can phone them on +353 1 676 4606. Opening hours are from 5.30 each evening.

August 2005

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