ON family holidays to New York, father and son Tony and Chris Lawbuary often talked about opening their own specialist steak restaurant in their home town of Southampton.
So when a vacant unit came up next door to the pair’s existing restaurant, Porters Wine & Charcuterie, just off the city's Oxford Street, they decided to go for it.
Modelled on their favourite New York steakhouse, the iconic Gallagher’s,Porters Steakhouse opened its doors in May this year.
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“I first went to Gallagher’s when I was 18 and it’s my favourite steakhouse in the world - that’s the steakhouse we always remember,” explains Chris.
“We always said we’d like to open one like it, with the mini dry-aging cabinet in the restaurant - there’s nowhere that does that around here.
“Most steakhouses are quite conventional but we wanted to be all about the quality of the beef and to really do it justice in the way that it’s prepared and served.”
Porters sources its dry-aged beef from Olly Woolnough of Meat Matters on the Gower Peninsula in Wales. He takes the highest quality grass-fed beef and matures it in his temperature-controlled aging rooms for up to 45 days.
When the beef arrives with Porters head chef Mateusz Werschner, it is placed in the in-restaurant aging cabinet - lined with Himilayan pink rock salt.
The salt draws moisture from the meat, creating a greater concentration of flavour, while over time the beef's natural enzymes break down the connective tissue in the muscle, leading to more tender beef.
Matt and sous chef Artur Kwiatkowski, who recently joined Porters from The Pig in Brockenhurst, then cook each steak on the barbecue grill according to the customer’s preference.
Alongside signature dry-aged steaks, the menu offers regular steaks and a range of chicken, fish and vegetarian dishes using local produce.
Tony and Chris are determined that dining at Porters should be memorable. In what they believe is another city first, they’ve adopted a Coravin system, enabling them to offer 16 different wines by the glass, including several that are organic, sustainable and biodynamic.
“In total we offer over 70 different bottles of wine, making our wine selection one of the biggest in Southampton. We want Porters to be a cut above the rest in everything we do,” adds Chris.
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