Unparalleled 360º city views over rooftops and river to mountains and bay await atop the former Central Bank – built in Brutalist style by architect Sam Stephenson – in an exciting destination rooftop restaurant, lounge and bar that matches those views with interiors worth dressing up for and a brasserie style all-day menu worth exploring more than once.
Consider arriving early to grab a drink at one of several bars scattered over the top two upper floors, and to allow time to do your first spin around the outer walkway to take in those views and get your bearings. Inside, the stripped back industrial-chic lines of the interior space are underscored with a retro-futuristic decor design that feels reminiscent of what the 2020s might have looked like from the vantage point of 1973, when construction first began on this once-controversial, now-iconic landmark building. The glass-topped, double-floored rooftop restaurant and lounge have been added to the original eight suspended floors of this building, with the restaurant on the 10th floor opened first and the lounge and bar on the 9th floor to follow. There’s a feeling of floating above the city, perhaps in a luxury cruise ship, and it all feels terribly glamorous.
Simply being here in this space is an event in itself, and it’s a perfect setting for everything from anniversaries and other celebrations to date nights to remember – which makes the range of prices in the menu all the more impressive, given that you could come for a well-priced burger and glass of wine or blow the budget on premium steaks and seafood and a wine list loaded with heavyweights from Burgundy, Bordeaux and northern Italy.
Offering Kelly’s native oysters from Connemara as one of several appetisers lays out the stall clearly regarding sourcing and provenance – these are some of Ireland’s finest, available seasonally and with a unique flavour and firm texture that is quite different from the more widely available Pacific oyster. Likewise it’s encouraging to see organic chicken soup amongst the starters (served with a ‘homemade Irish dumpling’), if a little puzzling that chicken dishes elsewhere are not flagged as either organic or free-range.
Other starters range from traditional prawn cocktail to playful Lambay crab soldiers with béarnaise dipping sauce to their signature Díon vol-au-vent. It’s a dish that showcases this kitchen’s ability to handle classic French flavours and techniques, with its layering of truffled chicken, cep mushrooms, foie gras and vin jaune sauce topped with shaved black truffles nested on a raft of excellent puff pastry benefiting from lots of Irish butter. It’s a statement dish with a price tag to match but you could balance out the pricing by sharing it along with a cheaper bite from the appetisers, such as a brilliantly textured trio of crunchy bacon and cabbage croquettes filled with a loose and yielding béchamel flavoured with Coolea cheese and gammon and dressed with a perfectly pitched honey and wholegrain mustard sauce.
Seafood and steaks dominate the main courses: think premium fish like turbot or halibut as the fish of the day, and dry-aged rib-eye, fillet and sharing-sized T-bone steaks from John Stone or Veire Irish Wagyu, cooked on a bespoke Basque grill. Wild Dover sole ‘prepared whole and served on the bone’ is hard to pass by and confidently executed, seared to a crisp caramelisation and served in its own juices with some lemon juice and slow cooked cherry tomatoes bringing tart acidity to complement the depth of the fish. It is served with nothing else, so you’ll need to order some sides like sautéed spinach and a creamy colcannon. Other mains include retro classics like Barbary duck à l’orange given a clever twist with an intensely flavoured, almost candied textured endive tart; a Díon double smash burger with aged Dubliner Cheddar, crispy Irish bacon, triple-cooked beef dripping chips and aioli; and an unusual vegetarian plate of whipped smoked tofu with grilled courgettes, fried hen of the woods mushrooms and a potato and penny bun gratin.
Desserts continue the crowd-pleasing classics theme with the likes of pistachio eclairs dressed in hot chocolate sauce table side, or tarte tatin for two.
With 260 seats plus another 100 throughout three separate bar spaces, this is a vast machine of a place, yet manages to feel much more intimate as, wherever you sit in the restaurant proper, your dining table vantage point looks out over the city below and sky above, rather than a sea of tables. Service is delivered by a smartly attired and typically charming team, but Dion has only been open since December 2025 and there is still a touch of the unwieldy machine to the operation, so service may seem a little disjointed at times. Note when booking online that there is a choice of high top dining at one of several bar areas in the interior, and main restaurant dining, which offers the better views. And while there are no bad tables as such, it’s worth requesting a window table to take full advantage of the floating in the sky feeling.
