Restaurant review: Butcher & Still at Four Seasons Abu Dhabi fails to fully capture the imagination

The 1940s Chicago gangster-style decor of Butcher & Still at Four Seasons is remarkable, but the food fails to fully capture the imagination

 Double-crust apple pie at Butcher & Still. Courtesy Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi at Al Maryah Island.
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HBO's prohibition ­drama Boardwalk Empire, starring the always brilliant ­Steve Buscemi, struck its most lasting chords by evoking an era of American life that oozed timeless style and ­dapper cool. It made you want to build a time ­machine and go back to the roaring 1920s and 1930s, don a vintage suit and swan about like you owned the city.

Admittedly, the era that the Four Seasons’ grand new steakhouse, Butcher & Still, is aiming to evoke is about a decade later – the ambience of a 1940s Chicago steakhouse – but with its period-jazz background music and bullet casings embedded in bathroom tiles for the full Al ­Capone-style experience, you don’t feel so very far removed from the aforementioned age.

Accordingly, you can, metaphorically, quite easily slip into those ­immaculately shined shoes of Capone or Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson and emulate that ­money-no-object swagger of those iconic gangsters.

Butcher & Still, as you might imagine given its home is in the Four Seasons, is not an every day dining destination, although that is one of its big attractions – it has an air of the special.

That’s all very well, but with many of the dishes carrying not-insignificant price tags, is the food itself as notable as the decor and ambience?

There is no doubting you will feel like a king or queen among mere men and ­women should you order the grand seafood tower (Dh315), as my dining partner and I did for our starter.

We were advised by one of the immaculately turned out, and very personable, waiting staff, predominantly from Eastern Europe, that the three-tier ­leviathan is more than enough of a first course for both of us – indeed, he warned, ­sometimes up to six diners had shared one.

It was certainly sufficient for two, comprising six oysters, crab cocktail, scallops crudo, octopus ceviche, two “extra colossal” prawns and lobster served on ice. Nothing stood out as specifically below-par, but there wasn't quite the zing of expected freshness.

Disappointingly, we did not get the chance to not just break the bank but murder it in cold blood by ordering the 255-gram, grade 5 Kagoshima Wagyu rib-eye (Dh590), because it was unavailable on the evening we visited.

This aside, among such ­stratospheric-priced offerings, the steaks were not all costly.

My dining partner opted for the Kansas City strip, and at 400g it was a lot of meat for your Dh200. She embellished it with some wedge-shaped truffle fries with Béarnaise. Again, it ticked most boxes, but just wasn't quite textured enough to demand ploughing through its bulk to the finale.

I had no need for additional sides, given my brisket burnt ends (Dh180) came drenched in barbecue sauce, served on a slice of bread with house-made pickles and a side of fries. The brisket was as melt-in-the-mouth as hoped, although the windy weather on the balcony did mean that everything went cold rather quickly.

The dessert choices kept things authentically American, with huge triangular slabs of pies and cakes that could be ­alternatively employed to prop a door open.

The key lime pie, with lots of toasted meringue, was fresh and filling. The double-crust ­apple pie, with chunky layers of apple, ­defeated my dining ­partner somewhat.

There is plenty of attention to detail around Butcher & Still, including retro menus, mini meat cleavers that double as ­lethal-looking butter knives and a Beech oven set into the wall of the balcony. And the terrace enjoys some of the most impressive ground-floor views in Abu ­Dhabi, looking out across the skylines of Al Maryah Island and Al ­Zahiyah. Back indoors, though, the ­experience is ­almost like time travel – you really do feel you could be about to witness a mobster hit or ­Tommy-gun ­attack.

It’s a remarkable setting, ­although the food doesn’t quite capture the imagination to the same memorable degree as the decor.

• Our meal for two at Butcher & Still, Four Seasons Abu Dhabi, cost Dh1,146. For more information, call 02 333 2222. Reviewed meals are paid for by The National and conducted incognito

aworkman@thenational.ae