River North

River North describes itself as a neighbourhood pub, but, with its bottomless brunches and fancy steaks, branded crockery and comprehensive cocktail list, not to mention its Ropewalks location, it’s something beyond how we’d usually describe a backstreet boozer.

If you can’t eat your eggs benny or American pancakes without a bottle of Prosecco to wash them down, then this is the place, serving its Boozy Brunch every day from 10am until 2pm. In fact, order a Bloody Mary, pomegranate-based Pomosa and a strawberry Bellini plus a pairing of French toast with peach melba and you’re well on your way to meeting your five-a-day. Other meals to set you up include a Reuben sandwich or croque madame, or, in the plant-based corner, a vegan BLT or a vegan breakfast featuring avocado and padron peppers, alongside the usual facon, meat-free sausages and wotnot. Big plates run the gamut from mushroom pasta and salads, including chicken Caesar, to epic chunks of meat, the likes of tomahawk pork chop, which comes with garlic mash, chargrilled tenderstem broccoli and honey mustard sauce. That sauce is one of the choices – along with peppercorn, chimichurri, bearnaise and garlic butter – to accompany the various steaks: bone-in ribeye to share, 10oz ribeye or 8oz fillet, with a tiger prawn add-on option for the full surf’n’turf experience. There’s also steak frites, as well as poulet frites, while on the menu on Lazy Sundays, your choices include salt-aged beef sirloin, haunch of lamb and nut roast, all with the usual roasties, Yorkshire, seasonal veg and gravy.

For afters, crowdpleasers are the name of the game. Think along the lines of sticky toffee pudding topped with a mountainous scoop of ice cream or an oozy chocolate fondant, and you’re in the right kind of area – River North area, just not anyway near the container port.

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