Owner mother and daughter duo Dolly and Amy

Dolly is the hostess with the mostess, regularly highlighted and praised in reviews of our restaurant as one of the most friendly and hospitibale restaurant owners in Dublin. A huge favourite with locals and tourists alike Dolly is now famous for her harmonica playing for occasions such as Birthdays.

As a strict vegetarian Dolly ensures we have a varied and interesting vegetarian menu which often gets as much praise as our al a carte menu. This includes our famous honey and lime marinated tofu steaks which are available to pre order. Checkout our menu online or on our Facebook page and then make sure to let us know when you are booking online. Also, remember to give us notice for your birthday bookings.

We also scoured the web and found this collection fo Vegetarian Recipes we thought might be of some use to our vegetarian friends.

Great Vegetarian Recipes

Prepping meat in butchers

So why are Darwins so famous for our steaks?

Having found the perfect premises in 80 Aungier we found that the building at the back of Darwin’s crossed onto Stephen’s street, ironically the location of Michael Smith’s late father Sean Smith ‘s butchers for 25years. The connections of these two buildings allowed us the space to build a state of the art kitchen alongside an in house butchers where all our meats are specially prepared.

Our kitchen staff, alongside our in house butcher Michael Smith, prepare and cut all of the meat on our menu in the butchers attached to the rear of the restaurant. All of our fillet steaks are rolled in cling film and shaped to perfect circular cuts. Through a very careful rotation process our chefs and Michael only allow steaks which are perfectly aged and matured to be served in the restaurant.

The secret to the perfect steak

• The meat must be hung for at least 21 days. Longer if possible. 
• The meat should be left at room temperature for a period before cooking. Putting a cold steak straight from the fridge onto a hot pan will cause the meat to become tough. 
• Sear on a very hot pan or grill until each side has a nice brown colour. 
• Season a metal oven flat dish and cook the steak to just below the temperature you want in an oven. 
• Take the steak out of the oven and rest for at least 5 minutes. Longer for more well done meats. 
• Finally finish the steak on a pan/grill and serve immediately.

Name The Sister

When Darwin’s Restaurant first opened we purchased a pair of lady statues from the original tenant, Cliffords Antiques, but only one would fit in our first premises on Aungier St - her sister was put in storage for 5 years until we moved to our current residence, number 80 Aungier Street where they could be reunited once again. The first of our ladies, as seen on the left in the picture below was christened Fiona. Now, we are looking for a good name for her sister. So what do you think?

What name do you feel suits her sister and why? The Winner will win a bottle of our Wine of the Month.