Take your pick from an array of meats, with a salad on the side at Chennai’s Meating Room

Meating Room on TTK Road offers an intimate dining experience with imported meats and creative vegetarian options.

A cheery playlist of all the songs popular on Instagram reels plays at Meating Room on TTK Road as the first few diners trickle in. The space is warm and cosy, complete with brick walls and cheeky messages scrawled across — steak and meat puns obviously.

This intimate setting is completely by design, says Arunima Karmakar, a partner at Chennai’s newest steakhouse. “We are open only in the evenings, from 6.30pm and can seat around 24 diners at a time. We want them to walk in, and have an intimate, comfortable dining experience where the focus is on the food,” she says.

Our conversation is punctuated by sounds from the pre-service flurry of kitchen activity, most of which is visible thanks to glass separating the seating area from the kitchen. There is a traditional menu, but we would much rather take our pick from the chalkboard hung on the wall, detailing the cuts and the quantity available.

Their highlights are the imported meats, listed under premium cuts. “The steaks are sold per gram, and the availability of both the premium and grade A domestic cuts change based on availability every day,” says Arunima, picking the Wagyu tenderloin, as a favourite. The meat is slow-cooked sous vide, and then pan seared before being served, she adds.

We begin by diving into their well-conceived appetisers and salad menu. The long homemade fries are crisp and warm, but the flaky goat cheese and onion jam phyllo makes for a more interesting start to the meal.

Chef Babu Perumal, who helms the kitchen at Meating Room, waxes eloquent on their efforts to ensure that the vegetarian diners are not neglected, and the proof is in their salads. The grilled pears, whipped goat cheese and almond salad is ideal for the summer — sweet, savoury and full of flavour in every bite. The standout dish here however, is the char grilled napa cabbage in a coconut curry sauce and chilli oil. The long cabbage leaves have just the right amount of smokiness, and the flavoursome sauce also makes for a great accompaniment to your meat main course.

For the crown jewel of the meal, we try a grade A cut fillet mignon, cooked medium rare and drenched in a creamy mushroom sauce. The meat is soft, tender, and cooked to perfection – definitely the best pick if you are a diner who wants a smaller yet satisfying meal. The green peppercorn jus and the surf and turf sauce (creamy and dotted with pieces of shrimp) that we also sample on the side, are better picks from their sauce options.