There’s a theatrical puff of smoke after the tuna sashimi lands – four coral slabs lined up in a wooden bowl (€12), flanked by a curl of carrot and a chunk of ginger. Mist billows across the table the second water hits the flask of dry ice. It is a perfect Instagram moment. The tuna doesn’t need the drama. It’s firm, without sinew and cut cleanly into thick slices.
The restaurant is Maneki. It opened in 2019 in a Georgian town house on Dawson Street – a five-storey building now home to four diningrooms and four private karaoke suites at the top of the house. We’re two floors up, in a room with banquettes, textured grey stone walls and four oversized white feathers. A slatted wooden divider gives a polite nod to Japan.
Owner Polly Yang trained in Japanese kitchens before launching a menu pitched as a “culinary dialogue” between Chinese, Japanese, and European techniques. In practice, this means sashimi and futomaki on the same page as stir-fries, hot pots, and party platters of wok-fried crustaceans in Cajun or curry sauce. The aim is comfort, not challenge. The Tripadvisor reviews are heavy on hen parties.
I had received an email about their new “Holy Crab Seafood Heaven”, which includes crab, crayfish, prawns, octopus, squid, clams and mussels stir-fried in garlic butter chilli sauce on The Holy Special (€89 for two), with the addition of lobster on The Holy Supreme (€114).
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As entry to heaven is a bit on the steep side, I keep it to a step further down the stairway and opt for the soft shell crab roll (€26), a tidy eight-piece roll with enough crunch to register, chunks of avocado inside and bonito flakes twitching on top. It’s dressed in a sticky soy glaze. You’d have it again. You’d also forget it immediately.
Chicken gyoza (five pieces, €11) follow – steamed, then pan-fried, served on a narrow plate with a slick of dipping sauce. The filling is loose but warm, the bottom crisp and the top gently steamed. It’s fine.
The beef teppan yaki (€30) arrives on a teppan plate, spitting and seething like it’s been fired directly from a kiln. The 8oz striploin is sliced, sitting on top of white cabbage and bean sprouts, with sides of rice and miso soup. It is rare (as requested), but the lightly browned exterior indicates that it has been seared on a flat top that wasn’t hot enough, or there was moisture on the surface of the meat. It’s missing that outside char. But the real issue is with the teriyaki sauce. It is a cooking sauce – applied to glaze the meat as it sears on the grill. Here it is brought in a jug, to be poured over the steak at the table. Nothing caramelises. It ends up tasting more like syrup than soy.
Then there’s the kimchi seafood ramen (€24), served in a deep bowl where an excess of farmed salmon threatens to derail the entire thing until it is removed to a side plate. The rest of it is pretty standard fare, a boiled egg sliced into halves, soft noodles, tofu, bok choi, scallions, squid, a prawn, and two fake crab sticks. The broth is bland. There’s a trace of kimchi, but no funk, no spice, no acid. You could call it one note if you could identify the note.
A 210ml carafe of Junmai sake (€12) is served warm – light, clean, slightly floral – and we also have a chilled bottle of Asahi (€6.50). The drinks list covers the bases – wine by the glass and bottle, sake in carafes, beers, plum wine, and a short run of spirits. Enough to work with, though not a list for lingering over.
We share mochi for dessert (€7.50) – neat frozen balls of ice cream (green tea and mango) wrapped in a sticky rice casing. It’s quite firm, out of the freezer, cold, chewy and not particularly remarkable.
Maneki is built for groups – the kind of place where a big table, a bit of sake, and a blast of dry ice can carry the night. Service is warm, but the food coasts on surface-level polish. What’s promised as layered, pan-Asian cooking lands as bland mediocrity. Prices aim high, but the cooking rarely does. There’s no disaster – just a lot of theatre up front, and not much that stays with you after the smoke clears.
Dinner for two with a flask of sake and a beer, including 12.5 per cent service charge, was €145.13.
The verdict A showy start gives way to a muddled menu and inconsistent execution.
Food provenance Scottish salmon; Sri Lankan tuna; Indian and South American prawns; Irish lobster, crab from Ireland, Greece and Spain; meats from Ireland – chicken and pork not free-range.
Vegetarian options Sweet potato tempura sushi roll, vegan oden Japanese hot pot, yasai yaki soba, vegan chocolate and coconut tart.
Wheelchair access No accessible room or toilet.
Music Muted, in the background.
