We knew we must have been rumbled at Shanahans on the Green when, at the end of the meal, we were presented with two startlingly large desserts, compliments of the house. The first was a bread and butter pudding the size of a cauliflower, the second a stunning arrangement of fruits scooped out and filled with their own sorbet and decorated with - get this - big chocolate sticks and rings sprayed with edible, 24-carat gold. Last time I ate chocolates dipped in gold was back in the 1980s in London, when they were the only thing to bring to dinner parties at the homes of rich City types. The crash followed soon after, so maybe the gold chocolate-sticks at Shanahans are a sign of things to come. I ate them all the same and the chocolate was fabulous: the owner, John Shanahan told us the gold, being a mineral, was very good for us, too.
We struck up quite a relationship with Shanahan in the course of the evening as he visited our table several times to find out if we were enjoying ourselves, if the steak was tender, the onions to our liking and so on. He's a ruddy, affable fellow with a twinkle in his eye that I decided might easily develop into an evil glint if you were working for him and put a foot wrong. This is a very opulent restaurant, with a big staff, all of whom behave impeccably. Formerly in the publishing business in New York, Shanahan says he has no previous restaurant experience but is a damn fine cook and just wanted to open the best steakhouse ever in Dublin. Now in its third month of business, Shanahans is doing so well, he says, that there are plans to open another in Prague, and a third in California.
Our waitress was particularly nice. I arrived early and was seated at a fine, big table for two with a great view of the room. Deirdre was late and the waitress kept me company for a while talking about the restaurant and how the staff had been training since March. The first thing that arrived on the table was a loaf of fresh, crusty bread wrapped in a napkin, which oozed cheese from the centre when cut by the waitress with a big, serrated knife. This is impressive but wasteful, since you wouldn't dream of eating more than the few slices they cut, so the rest of the loaf must be thrown out. I had a slice of this and a good look around the room before Deirdre arrived: it's hard to see where a restaurant could go wrong with rooms like these.
Shanahans takes up an entire Georgian building on the Green, where Whites on the Green and Baton Rouge were before it, and has three diningrooms and a bar in the basement. The raised ground-floor room is for smokers, the non-smoking rooms are upstairs in what would have been the interconnnecting drawingrooms of the original house. It's really very elegant up here with the tall windows, high ceilings, and big, gilt mirrors over marble fireplaces.
Tables are covered in starched white damask; chairs are those ultra-comfortable library chairs with high backs and wide seats. The atmosphere is quiet and rich and, somehow, very un-Irish. At one table a group of young people was paying attention to the central character, a big confident man holding forth in a mid-Atlantic accent: at another table, a group of six or seven men (who, we fancied, were Jesuits) was having a slap-up meal, starting with champagne and finishing with port. At the table beside us, the men were reassuringly local, since one of them was having a pint of Guinness with his Dover Sole. The wine list gave me a turn. At first sight there didn't seem to be anything under £40, but in fact there are wines - though not many - for less than £20: you just have to find them. There are also lots of expensive French and Californian wines and no notes to tell you why you should choose this Cabernet Sauvignon for £21 or that one for £196. There are no house wines and, should you want to celebrate, the cheapest champagne is Roderer non-vintage at £53.
On the plus side, there is a selection of wines by the glass, at least 12 of them, ranging in price from £4.50 for a Pinot Blanc to £12.25 for a 1997 Burgundy.
The main courses here are very generous so you don't need a starter, but we didn't know that before ordering smoked salmon with a giant blini and caviar for me and sauteed garlic shrimp in a buttery white wine sauce for Deirdre. Lighter options would have been the Caesar Salad or the Asparagus and Mushroom Mille Feuille, or the Sizzling Mussels, all priced between £5.50 and £7: ours cost £7.75 and £10.75, respectively. Expensive but very generous. Three types of smoked salmon came - perfect, draped across a pancake-sized blini with a dab of creme fraiche and a smidgen of caviar at the centre. The fish was scattered with finely chopped red onion and needed nothing more than a dash of black pepper to be absolutely perfect. Deirdre's garlic shrimp was a magnificent-looking thing, with the prawns standing on their heads around the plate, like the Loch Ness monster emerging from a lake of creamy, herby garlic sauce. The sauce was divine, though you would be sweating out the garlic for days afterwards.
Service around us seemed to be fairly leisurely, though we were served by three or four different people extremely briskly.
WHEN the main courses arrived, my pork shank was gargantuan, but dwarfed by Deirdre's plate of deep-fried onion strings, which she thought looked like a wig from D'Unbelievables. It was a huge, orange heap of fabulously fattening onioney curls. The only way to eat these is immediately because they cooled down very quickly: after a few bites, they were cold and tasted more of fat than of onions - and there was still enough to feed a family of four on the plate. A nifty idea, Deirdre concluded, but not really very nice to eat. All the main courses are straightforward - meat or fish, with not a thing for vegetarians. Choices range from a Petit Filet 8 oz steak at £17 to a whole Irish lobster at £30, with New York Strip Sirloin, a whopping Shanahan Steak, rack of lamb, chicken and salmon in between.
My pork was astonishingly rich and succulent, and was delicious all on its own, though there was lots of shredded, buttery cabbage underneath, and a copper pot full of apple sauce on the side, topped with a big curl of crackling. Deirdre had the petit filet, which brought Mr Shanahan to our table once more to explain how they choose the beef. It seems the restaurant has its own tester, who, like the Man from Del Monte, goes to the best supplier to select some cuts and reject others. Mind you, Deirdre's steak was just fabulous. Seasoned and seared to some incredible heat on the outside, but marvellously tender and pink inside. I would go back just to have one to myself. Roasted Cheddar Potatoes with Bacon and Onions (£4) were a perfect match for the meat, and left us both feeling as though we didn't need to eat for the next 24 hours.
The wine didn't help as, flummoxed by the choice and the prices, I had ordered a particularly rich Australian chardonnay at a shocking £37. Excellent coffee followed and some petit fours - strawberries dipped in chocolate and little crumbly biscuits - that we were just too full to appreciate. The bill, including lots of mineral water, came to £107 without service. The desserts would have added another £16.
Last, but not least, a visit to the Ladies where a young woman stood by to hand us towels. This was the limit, said Deirdre, who felt she could unfurl her own towel, thank you very much.
Shanahans on the Green, 119 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2. Tel 01-4070939
