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Daniel Brenan Brickhouse
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Noise Level:
- Average
3 reviews for Daniel Brenan Brickhouse
3 reviews in English
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Review from Kristen H.
9/13/2011
We're visiting PEI from the Boston area and were looking for a restaurant with fresh local cuisine. We definitely found that in the Brickhouse. The food was excellent - fishcakes and lobster poutine to start. We finished the meal with the beet salad which had a lovely lavendar vinagrette and a sprinkling of pumpkin brittle. Probably the best salad I've ever had! The service was perfect - attentive but not overly so. Cocktail selection was great. Would definitely return if it wasn't an 11 hour drive from home!
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Review from Sue A.
8/2/2011
We chose to visit Daniel Brenan's Brickhouse for an anniversary dinner. I mistakenly thought that the restaurant had changed hands since being Off Broadway, but the premises are still owned and run by the Murphys, a Charlottetown family who owns many of the city's eateries. In fact, as you sit in the restaurant, you look across the street into two other restaurants owned by the same family. The thing I find with the Murphy restaurants is often the vision is greater than the execution which I usually find mediocre.
The Brickhouse is positioned as a player in the local ingredient/artisanal food market with a lot of emphasis on the young chef who creates innovative dishes featuring PEI ingredients. While it has a casual environment on the first two floors of the old brick building, the prices are certainly high end with apps in the $7 to $15 range and mains priced from $22 to $35.
For an app, I ordered a greens and beet salad which was good, but a bit heavy on the dressing. My husband ordered the attractively presented fishcakes served with an aioli cream sauce. The cream gave the somewhat bland deepfried cakes some flavour.
For mains, we both ordered the 8 oz. Island beef tenderloin at $35. The meat was delicious although mine was a bit more rare than medium rare would imply. The fries were just alright and the accompanying fresh market vegetables were a bit puzzling--corn which I'm not sure is in season here yet, fava beans and greens spinach sautéed in a sauce that tasted a bit like parmesan. The mix of flavours was too much for me and I found myself thinking less is more when it comes to fresh vegetables.
The attentive and eager service didn't match the high end prices. For the main and dessert courses, our food was served first before our friendly server noticed we were missing cutlery. She would sprint downstairs to retrieve cutlery while we gazed at our food. We also had to ask to see a dessert menu (no mention of the dessert specials featuring local ingredients, rhubarb pie and strawberry shortcake we saw advertised on the way out that I am sure would have beaten the rather bland and less than artisanal tasting flourless chocolate torte and sweet and sour chocolate cake that we shared) and she didn't ask if we wanted tea or coffee. Yet, she rather promptly delivered the cheque in an envelope marked "The Damage" while we were still finishing our wine.
Despite the mediocrity, I was glad we gave this newish eatery a try. At four months old, the Brickhouse seems to be a work in a progress. It seems to be trying to be all things to all people which results in a mediocre experience for everyone. If you have high-end prices, you can present a casual, high-end experience with food that is artisanal and flavourful with a matching level of service.
On a side note, one of the stranger parts of our meal was the delivery of the wine list on a tablet device. While technology is impressive, sometimes it's easier just to read a piece of paper rather than navigating page after page of details on an iPad.
We had a pleasant enough evening but for the price ($175+ with a bottle of wine and tip), next time I'd visit Lot 30, another Charlottetown restaurant focused on local food. -
Review from Holly B.
Dartmouth, NS
This restaurant used to be Off Broadway. The decor is warm and combines both traditional and modern flairs. The bar upstairs is amazing with beverage concoctions that you can't find anywhere else! The appetizer menu will astound you...we had the lobster poutine and it was absolutely delicious. We ordered our drinks off of an IPad touch. Very cool lighting - the ambiance is lovely. The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and their customer service skills are excellent. The Murphy's have done it again! I will go back again, and again, and again:)
