Ask around Mid Ulster for the best steak, and one name keeps coming up — a village restaurant in Ballygawley where the beef comes from a family butcher, is properly dry-aged, and is cooked exactly the way you ask for it. People drive from Dungannon, Omagh, Cookstown and further for it. This is why.

It starts with the butcher, not the kitchen

Most restaurants buy their steak in, portioned and vacuum-packed, and hope the grill does the rest. We do it the other way round. The beef at our steak restaurant in Ballygawley comes through Quinn’s, our own family-butcher heritage — so the steak on your plate has been chosen, hung and cut by people who have done it for a living, not ordered from a box.

That matters more than any sauce or seasoning. A good steak is decided long before it reaches the pan: the animal, the cut, and the time it’s given to age. Get those right and the kitchen’s job is simply not to get in the way.

What dry-ageing actually does

Dry-ageing is the quiet secret behind a great steak. The beef is hung in controlled conditions and time does the work. Two things happen. Moisture slowly leaves the meat, which concentrates the flavour — so every bite tastes more of beef, not less. And natural enzymes gently break down the muscle, so the steak becomes genuinely tender rather than merely soft.

The result is a depth of flavour you simply can’t rush or fake — a little nutty, a little mineral, unmistakably rich. It’s the difference people notice on the first mouthful, even if they couldn’t tell you the science behind it.

A good steak is decided long before it reaches the pan.

The cuts, and how they differ

We keep a range on, because no two steak lovers want the same thing:

  • Fillet — the 8oz fillet: the leanest and most tender cut, delicate in flavour. The one to choose if you like your steak melt-in-the-mouth over big and beefy.
  • Sirloin — the 10oz sirloin: the classic all-rounder, firm and full-flavoured with a good edge of fat. If you’re not sure, this is the safe, brilliant choice.
  • Chateaubriand — the sharing cut for a table that wants an occasion, priced by weight. On Thursdays there’s a 16-day dry-aged chateaubriand for two, in limited numbers — mention it when you book.

Every one is Quinn’s dry-aged beef, and the current menu is always the one to trust.

Cooked to order — and we mean it

“Cooked to order” is written on a lot of menus. Here it’s the whole point. Tell us how you’d like it — blue, rare, medium-rare, medium, well done — and that’s how it comes. If you’re not certain, our team will guide you to the cut and the cook that suit you. A well-aged steak rewards being cooked a touch less than you might think, and we’ll happily say so.

Where to find us, and when

The Tailor’s House is in the centre of Ballygawley, just off the A4 — about 8 miles from Dungannon and an easy run from Omagh, on the Belfast–Donegal route. There’s free parking at the door. Our restaurant serves Thursday to Sunday from 12 noon, and if you’d rather not drive home afterwards, we have six boutique guest rooms upstairs.

Weekend tables fill early, so it’s worth taking a minute to book a table ahead. When people say they’ll drive for a good steak, this is the one they mean.

The Quinn Family