Temple Garner was one of the first chefs to bring New York-style dining to Dublin Restaurants, during his heady days at the much-loved Mermaid Café and subsequent stint at Dillinger’s.
Since 2011 he’s being majoring in New York-Italian fare, serving up steakhouse cuts, hearty pasta dishes and knock-out desserts at the hip and buzzy San Lorenzo’s.
The popular spot was a notoriously noisy dining space and the new revamp, which looks gritty and slick, hasn’t completely addressed that problem. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped customers flocking here for the gutsy cooking, both evenings and weekends, when a brunch booking is a much-sought-after thing.
Char-grilled steak is a speciality and everything, from the delicious bread to the pasta and ice cream, is made in-house.
Big, clean flavours have always been Temple’s strengths and dishes like a char-grilled salad of calamari and chorizo with roasted peppers, gremolata rolled pork belly or Himalayan salt-aged rib-eye with red onion, tomato, duck fat roasties and rocket are bound to please.
Desserts are a big deal here and always superb. Nutella baked cheesecake might tempt, but anyone in the know will make a beeline for Temple’s legendary pecan pie.
Staff are always friendly but, with tables tightly packed in, they come under pressure and service can sometimes suffer at busy periods.
Reservations are strongly recommended.
