Fireside
Basque-style Open Flame Grilling in Hong Kong
Fireside is a live-fire steakhouse on the fifth floor of a Central building, with the expected theatre: a flaming centrepiece by the entrance, the grill running in full view, and a dry-ageing room you pass on the way in. The cuts for the evening sit behind glass with their provenance, weight and ageing time marked beside them. There are larger primals in the lockers behind the counter.
It opened in late 2021 under Chef Miguel Gallo, initially as a more formal tasting-menu restaurant built around smoke, hot and cold dishes, and the grill. Jaime Ortola took over in 2022 after La Paloma and moved it towards a la carte, lunch sets, brunch and steak. That feels like the current restaurant: good produce, serious beef buying, and enough fire to keep the room from becoming another dark, polished steakhouse.
The cooking relies on wood, binchotan, a Mibrasa grill and a brick oven. Fireside still leans hard on the open-fire language, but the kitchen handles the smoke with some restraint.
We arrived at the fifth floor restaurant and were greeted by a flaming centerpiece highlighting the live-fire nature of the cooking.
Passing the aging room with the steaks cut out for the night on display.
Additional primals in various stages of dry aging were sitting in the meat lockers behind the display counter.
We went with a larger group and booked the Tuesday steak tasting: five steaks from different countries, served for groups of four or more. They brought out the cuts before cooking. On the left was a wet-aged Uruguay Patagonia Angus striploin; on the right, four dry-aged ribeyes: John Stone Irish Hereford, Italian Marango, Danish Jersey dairy cow and nine-year-old Spanish Rubia Gallega.
For five people, each steak looked closer to 600 to 800 grams than a tasting portion. There was no shortage of beef.
The grill was already going by the time the whole table had arrived. Looking at the amount of steak lined up, and the lack of anything else, we ordered a few starters while we waited.
The warm sourdough came with whipped smoked butter.
The blue belly shrimp crudo came with the heads fried crisp and an escabeche sauce.
The burnt crab roll: charcoal brioche, crab, and a generous layer of uni. It gave the meal some lift before the steak parade started.
When the first two steaks arrived, the restaurant asked us to choose our weapons. We soon asked for sauces, horseradish, anything to help cut through the incoming volume of meat. The chef refused. His view was that the steaks needed to be tasted with salt alone, then he relented enough to send a small extra dish of salt.
I understand the argument. The tasting exists to compare the beef. Still, after several large cuts, salt is not much of a strategy.
The first pair was the Uruguay Angus striploin and the Irish Hereford ribeye, served with blistered padrón peppers under an unidentifable cheesy sauce. The striploin was leaner and cleaner. The Hereford had more marbling and a deeper beef flavour. Both landed at a proper medium rare: a thick striploin and a thinner ribeye, perfectly executed.
The first two steaks were served with some blistered padron peppers topped with a unidentifable cheesy sauce.
Then came the Italian Marango and the Jersey dairy cow, both ribeyes, with a small head of charred butter lettuce and ponzu mayo. The Marango was my favourite of the five. It was extraordinarily fatty, almost too much so, but the richness carried real depth rather than just grease. The Jersey was also excellent, with the lactic sweetness you expect from dairy cow.
The Rubia Gallega came last. At nine years old, it was less tender and less fatty than the earlier ribeyes, but had a concentrated, savoury beef flavour.
Fireside served it with smashed potatoes, aioli and herbs. By then, the potatoes felt less like a side and more like a rescue operation.
Dessert was lemon sorbet over dried coconut flakes. Clean and useful after that much fat.
Fireside sources its meat well. Its beef list runs from Australian Wagyu and Korean Hanwoo to Italian Carima Frisian cow, Irish Hereford, Spanish Rubia Gallega and El Capricho, German Simmental dairy cow and Portuguese Minhota ox. The steak tasting gave us a real sense of the differences between the cuts: texture, fat, flavour and ageing all came through. The kitchen cooked every one of them perfectly.
But the format is hard to love. The meal became mouthful after mouthful of beef and salt. There were two small vegetable and potato accompaniments, but they did not balance the scale of the steak. I would take two-thirds of the beef, more sides, and a few sauces without hesitation. It would make for a more relaxed dinner and a better conversation.
The tasting prioritises a sourcing exercise over a good night out. Fireside can buy serious meat, explain where it came from, and cook it well over fire. Five people can enjoy a steak comparison without treating it like an endurance event. It’s a shame, because the sides were absolutely excellent. I would’ve just preferred a lot more of them.
For a normal dinner, I would go a la carte. Order one or two cuts to share, keep the crab roll and shrimp crudo, add vegetables and potatoes, and let the grill do its job. Fireside has more personality than the usual Central steakhouse and the cooking is better than the whole live-fire performance suggests. Just do not book the tasting unless you want an awful lot of beef.
Total Damage 8200 HKD/5 people