On the periphery of Anna Nagar Tower park, SteakOut is the city’s newest café celebrating meat, in different sizes and proportions on the plate. With an open-café concept, it looks pretty in yellow lights with plants hanging from the ceiling on the exterior, making it easily recognisable in the neighbourhood as a cosy space. Unlike most cafés, we sit on bar stools with cycle pedals which face a high table-top, as we perused the menu.
New to hospitality but chasing their dreams head-on, co-owners and friends Richard Arun and Karthik Rajakumar, started the café with a focus on quick bites while also serving delicious chicken through open grills. While one is a hardware engineer-turned-restaurateur, the other is an art director and the brain behind the quirky interiors. Owing to the name, SteakOut boasts of grills, BBQs and tandoori but also has a menu with easy starters like chicken popcorn and even non-vegetarian samosas apart from wraps, sandwiches and skewers.
We started with the humble shawarma — available in small, medium and large; it is not like the regular roll with vegetables but is stuffed only with chunks of spiced chicken and mayonnaise, perfect for an evening craving. On the other hand, the Paneer Wrap is juicy, filled with paneer masala, lettuce, onions and mayonnaise, and makes for a vegetarian delight. With so much already on our plate, the towering Oreo Milkshake quenches our thirst as we wait for the Pepper Chicken BBQ, which we are told comes next. Ready with our knives and forks, the chicken, a rich amalgamation of pepper, lime and turmeric, is tender and can be cut through with ease; meat lovers should come starved if it has to be relished.
Ironically, despite the name SteakOut, the one dish not on the menu is steak! Arun tells us it is definitely on the cards in the near future, chicken steaks especially, will be available soon. For now, the decadent Chocolate Sandwich, for dessert makes us happy.
Meal for two is at Rs 750 plus taxes.