Era Ora Steakhouse

Twenty-eight euros for beef, oil and Tabasco. In a shrine to aged meat, the tartare is the one plate nobody thought about.

The review

Era Ora surrounds you with evidence of seriousness: dry-aging cabinets lit like reliquaries, Spanish Angus and full-blood Wagyu, awards from Italy's meat-culture establishment, a terrace over Balluta Bay. Which makes 'Tartare La Nostra' genuinely baffling. Twenty-eight euros buys beef dressed with olive oil, salt, pepper, French mustard and Tabasco — and the Tabasco is the loudest thing on the plate, a thin vinegar heat sitting on top of the meat instead of seasoning it. There is no yolk, no acid structure beyond that bottle, nothing crunchy, nothing pickled, nothing cold and sharp to cut the fat. The chop was coarse and slack, so the texture reads as mush rather than meat. Minimalism is a wager that your beef is so extraordinary it needs no help; this beef was ordinary, and the bet was lost before the plate left the pass. The steaks here are the real thing — order the fiorentina and pretend the starter section doesn't exist.

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