The patio at the Old Monk is the best argument in Dallas for showing up somewhere with no plan. Wood benches, trees overhead, a smattering of people who each found their own reason to be out there, and a server who has seen every version of your evening and isn’t worried about it.
You sit down for one and stand up at closing. Everybody does it. Nobody minds.
The Old Monk opened at 2847 N. Henderson Ave. in 1998, which on that street is close to prehistoric. Henderson wasn’t a destination then — no valet, no lines, no strip. A Dublin-born owner named Feargal McKinney came home from Belgium and France with mussels on his mind and built a pub around them.
The beer list is what you’re there for. It went global before that meant anything here, with Belgian, German, Irish, English and Czech pours and a rotation that shifts often enough that regulars check the board before they sit down. If you don’t know where to start, ask for a Trappist ale and let them pick. It’ll be stronger than you expect and slower than you’re used to, which on a patio in October is exactly correct.
Order a Chimay and then order the Chimay beer cheese off the cheese board, made by the same Trappist monks, and you’ve built an afternoon out of one idea. Three cheeses come with olives, crackers and bread. The list is real: Welsh rarebit served warm, Bruder Basil smoked German, Five Counties with five cheddars layered into one block, Saint André triple cream, whiskey cheddar, Stilton. Add the gypsy salami and you’re set for hours.
Whiskey shelf is deep. Cocktails are there for people who came for company rather than beer. Nobody is going to rush you either way.
When you’re ready to eat, the Belgian steamed mussels are the reason the place exists — a full pound in Hoegaarden with shallots, celery, garlic and herbs, with bread for the bottom of the bowl, which is the best part. Moules frites style, they come with skinny fries and two mayos.
The fish and chips is the dish that made their name: Atlantic cod in Smithwick’s ale batter, steak-cut fries, malt vinegar, house tartar. The batter shatters instead of sitting there like a bready wall, which is the whole difference.
Best of the rest. Guinness beef stew, beef simmered in stout, the only reason to want January. Pistachio fried chicken with a Strongbow cider barbecue sauce, the sleeper on the menu. Killer mushrooms, tempura fried with spicy cilantro sour cream. Frites with three mayos, spicy, tarragon and bourbon, all of which disappear. And the Monk Burger — caramelized onions, bacon and Welsh rarebit, with extra napkins promised right there on the menu. Any burger can be topped with anything off the cheese board, which is quietly the smartest thing on the page.
Practical notes. Doors at three most weekdays, 11:30 Friday, 11 on weekends, closing at midnight early in the week, one on Thursday, two Friday and Saturday. There’s a private lot, worth more than money on Henderson. If the patio’s full, the family runs four more — The Skellig and Spider Murphy’s down the street, Old Monk Oak Cliff and Kilmac’s across the river.
What keeps it going after twenty-eight years is that nobody in there is performing. No concept, no theme night, no wall you’re meant to photograph. A good patio, cold beer, fried fish, and the sense that whatever you came to talk about is welcome.
The Old Monk, 2847 N. Henderson Ave., Dallas. (214) 821-1880.
