Courtney’s Steakhouse,
24 Margaret Street,
Newry,
BT34 1DF
028 3025 1900
facebook.com/courtneyssteakhouse
I’ve been to Courtney’s Steakhouse in Newry twice, and this is the second time I’ve written about it.
Both times were a good time. Then and now there were starters that showed off real skill and flair, big generous main courses that made dessert a genuine question, and desserts that assured you that you had answered that question correctly. There was service to set you at ease and keep everything running as it should. There still is.
Back then it was impossible to leave without a brick of their Guinness and treacle wheaten – as good a loaf of bread as you’ll find anywhere – under your arm.
“Can you still get the wheaten to take away?”
“Of course, just a second.”
Thank God for that.
But while my two visits to Courtney’s were facsimiles, writing about them couldn’t have been more different.
Last time, between heading out the door with that wheaten, and writing about it a few weeks later, the world shut down.
So instead of a review, and a full-throated recommendation to pay a visit, it was 700 words of wondering what the future would bring, with eating out the last thing on anybody’s mind.
Four years later, it would be enough to return to Courtney’s and simply report that it’s still there. So many restaurants that pulled down the shutters in March 2020 never pulled them up again. Mere survival is a mark of achievement.
Courtney’s has done more than survived.
While back in 2020 we sat upstairs, this time it’s at canal level, in a homely room with a sweeping banquette hugging the walls, and comfy chairs.
And if you aren’t already comfortable enough, here comes that wheaten, the dark, sweet treacle and stout number and a paler, more traditional but no less absolutely bloody perfect version. If they only got this right it would be worth the trip. Thankfully there’s more.
The standard goat’s cheese and beetroot salad gets fancified into a panna cotta with just the right amount of wobble and tang, chunks of beetroot and puree, shards of pastry poppy seed crackers and sweet, deeply caramelised hazelnuts.
A whopping raviolo of well-made pasta is rammed with salmon and prawn, brightened up with lemon then doused in a bisque of serious depth. A spoon is brought out to do the needful, while a brace of fat langoustines perch on top.
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It’s a steakhouse, so a ribeye feels required, and it’s a good one. Well cooked, well rested, well beefy, with a little tower of potato fondant topped with a shallot puree that feels like an awful lot of work for a garnish, but who’s complaining?
The hand-cut chips are a bit pale, but they’re hot and crisp, while the Café de Paris butter – a vat of the stuff – has all the heady, thumping flavours you want to melt over that beef and dunk those chips into.
Here comes that wheaten, the dark, sweet treacle and stout number and a paler, more traditional but no less absolutely bloody perfect version. If they only got this right it would be worth the trip. Thankfully there’s more
They also enjoy a dip into the pot of chicken jus that arrives across the table, a gravy of serious distinction that comes with a ballotine of on-point breast, wrapped in Parma ham and round a tarragon and cep stuffing. There’s a sweep of flawlessly smooth butternut squash puree on the plate and cubes of potatoes shimmering in garlic butter.
Desserts don’t mess around either: Eton mess, crème brûlée, chocolate brownie, pavlova, sticky toffee pudding.
Maybe just give us a wee minute? Thanks.
The brownie delivers all the chocolate you could want while the pavlova does the same with it’s sweet chewiness after getting through the brittle shell. Less desserts than a couple of good old fashioned ‘sweets’. Definitely a compliment and just a lovely way to end things. Almost.
“Can you still get the wheaten to take away?”
“Of course, just a second.”
Thank God for that.
