Library Street Restaurant — Restaurant in Dublin

Have eaten here before and the food and restaurant is excellent. However, we had a booking last night and were running admittedly late. I attempted to call to inform them and apologise. Their voicemail said they were on holidays til August 8th. We therefore thought that the booking which had an email confirmation was an error and we did not show. I sent an email to which they replied 10mins later but by the time I saw it a half hour after it was too late to go as the kitchen was closed. They then charged us 100 euro a head for no show and accepted no responsibility for the misleading voicemail which we took at face value. Terrible way to treat a customer.

PS I have since had contact with the owner and read the reply below from the owner. The no show charge has been reduced to a late cancellation charge. I was informed that my phone number was incorrect on original booking to which I hold my hand up. I do admit as above that we were late also. However the fact remains, we did not turn up not because we wanted to treat the restaurant badly. The absolute inverse is true, we were gutted when we heard the voicemail saying clearly that that restaurant was closed and on holidays. I booked the restaurant months ago for a special night. We cancelled our taxi because we thought the restaurant was closed as this is what the message said. The voicemail message was plainly wrong and was misleading and that is that and there has been no recognition of this by the restaurant.

PS. In response to the further reply, the restaurant was going to charge a no show fee until I complained. Find below direct quote from their email:

“Unfortunately, I’ve had to charge you our no show fee.

Hope you understand.”

So all of this is not pointless and is in fact really important. I have no problems admitting that we were late and I apologise for this but the fact remains the message on the restaurant’s answer phone said the restaurant was closed so when we couldn’t get through to someone we cancelled our taxi instead of going into a closed restaurant. The restaurant refuses to apologise for their part in this, that is the very valid point.

Direct quote from owners email:

“Hi Stephen, I can understand the upset about having been charged a no-show fee.”

In the end I was charged a cancellation fee.

If the restaurant was closed for summer holidays then put the message on phone when you are actually on holidays not to mislead people. And if by mistake it happens, take ownership of the mistake.

In summary: This was a booking we were looking forward to with two guests from Paris. The last time we ate here the food and service was excellent. We were late and one digit of my mobile was incorrect in error both of these issues which I admitted to and accept and apologised for.

However, ultimately we did not attend our booking as there was a message incorrectly put on the restaurant's answerphone saying that the restaurant was closed for holidays. The owner still cannot admit to this and certainly evidently will never apologise for this and continues to place all fault with the...

(MUST READ) I might have to divorce my wife and see if the kitchen staff is single like all of them. My wife is a great cook I mean great. But she will never be able to top what I ate from this restaurant kitchen. This meal easily made my top 5 after the first bite.(Short version: EAT HERE)

So the folks at Library st. Have the menu set up as a family sharing style. There are four of us. So we started off the meal with Chicken wings 2 orders. At first I was not sure when it came to the table not your normal looking wing but after I took that first bite my eyes rolled back in my head and I knew I was going on a culinary adventure of delight. Next up was the risotto. This dish was perfectly balanced from the toasting of the rice to the dishes texture and seasonings. Next we got a whole lot of other things I am not going to talk about them all we could be here all day.

But I would like to talk about the justice they gave to the pork chop. I feel like sometimes you can taste if the spirit of the animal is mad it got cooked a certain way. You know not seasoned right, dry or undercooked. Like it's sacrifice is for nothing. OH NO!! Not this pork chop from Library Street Restaurant. As I dug into this pork chop presented to me I could sense the soul of this pig just looking down at me and being "Oink Mother F'en Oink, who knew I could be so delicious" and then the soul of the pig went into the light. Because it finished its business and moved on because of the chefs at LSR. It was perfect

It comes down to this. I read some of these other reviews. What I saw was that the portion size was not enough for them. That's because LSR is so delicious these customers want more. But hey news flash perfection costs money. I feel my bill was reasonably priced for what I received. I have had to pay more for food no where close to this quality and taste.

6 S T *A *RS No doubt - keep up the good work. Also I have no pictures of my food because I was...

The food was five stars but other things brought down the score. My girlfriend and I were meeting up with some friends recently and had booked Library Street, we had heard very good things about the food and wanted to try it. We weren’t disappointed on the food front as everything we ordered (and we ordered every single thing on the menu) was delicious and beautifully presented. Library Street is clearly angling for a Michelin Star in the next year, so if you want an excellent food experience before the currently substantial prices become stratospheric, I’d book soon. I would also note that the portions are very small so you may want to factor in a single of chips on the way home. The service staff were very knowledgeable on all the dishes and wines and were very helpful at all times. Generally our experience was extremely good, however there were two things that stuck in my craw and whilst they wouldn’t be considered black marks, they’re definitely grey. The first was, when we sat down, two unordered carafes of water were placed on the table, they were replaced at some point during our meal but we didn’t want, need or ask for them and didn’t drink the second set, when the bill arrived we were charged €8 for the four carafes of water. I know in the grand scheme of events in a bill of €360, €8 is a paltry amount but it annoyed me. The other thing was arguably more important and that is to do with the kitchen. There’s an interior window so you can see into the kitchen from the restaurant, I didn’t notice at the beginning of the meal, which is a good thing, but a number of the chefs had beards (one of them extremely long) and none of them were wearing beard coverings (snoods) nor were any of them wearing hats. If your staff aren’t going to abide by HACCP regulations, I don’t really want to see it so I’m not stressing about a potential...