Kelly's Steakhouse — Restaurant in The Municipal District of Portlaoise

To be honest I had a very poor experience in Kelly's Sunday night. I will start with the positives and that is the staff. The Service staff were very friendly and professional as was the manager who dealt with our feedback and that was very much appreciated. That's where the positives end, the food was poor, not only for the price but in general. I have eaten in the gastropubs in Portlaoise and they are all superior. The Ribeye steak was flavourless and rubbery, the lamb shank didn't fall away from the bone, in fact it took a lot of effort to try to pull the meat away and cut it off the bone and it wasn't nice, the carbonara had hardly any sauce so was dry and stodgy. Vegetables don't come with the dishes bar 2 tiny carrots which I think might have been positioned near a flame to cook because they were so hard. I will say that the chicken wings and calamari were fine. Overall though, it wasn't good enough and not fair to the front of house staff who were excellent but had to serve below par food. On another note, the menu hasn't changed in a long time and probably could do with a refresh and the price is extortionate for the quality of the meal. I don't mind paying money for good quality tasty food cooked by professionals but this isn't the case here. I won't be back, despite the excellent...

The food was average, if you were writing a book the food would be nothing more than a footnote.

For starters I had the soup, it was fine, it's not the hardest in the world to get right. However the accompanying bread, for dipping etc was not crispy, as in fresh, it was thick and crunchy like a door stop made of wood chippings. If you like your teeth avoid the bread.

For the main I ordered the lamb. The most startling thing about the lamb is the 25 euro price tag. I understand you may want to appear more upmarket etc etc. Higher barrier to entry, keep out the riff raff, i get you. What I don't get is while despite paying 25 euro for a paltry piece of lamb on a wafer thin smearing of mash potatoes its quality wasn't all that great, unseasoned, boring.

The staff were nice, attentive but never unwelcome. Quick with the bill and no messing around. 10/10

The ambience was enjoyable, soft amber lighting with large enclosed booths for more of a personal experience with whomever you've brought along. The restaurant overall was somewhere you could easily spend 2 hours chatting over food. Provided however the food was purchased elsewhere.

Final thoughts would be, nice place and if the price was lower I could see merit in visiting again. However the prices are akin to Dublin prices but without...

Just had dinner at Kelly's Steakhouse. Overall, a very enjoyable experience.

Staff are very friendly and helpful.

Great menu. Great choices on it for non-meat diners.

My wife had the prawns to start - followed by 10 oz fillet steak. I had the Kelly onion rings to start - followed by the 10 oz rib-eye steak.

Starters: the prawns were perfectly cooked - a very generous portion - perfectly priced. The main negative was that the sauce was too rich (for a starter). My onion rings were disappointing - primarily because there was still far too much oil in/on them. The oil was not fresh - it had that "burnt" taste from it. I could not finish the portion from the lingering taste of oil. Pity - because the onion rings would have been very good otherwise.

Mains: Both our steaks were delicious. Technically, they were a tad "over cooked" from what we asked - but just a tad - they were served on extremely hot "stone" plates so had continued to cook from the kitchen to our table. Other than that - the flavour was perfect - the quality was extremely good.

We didn't have dessert - far too full.

Overall - it wasn't perfect - but it was close to it - so I would still highly recommend...