One of the things I like about going to restaurants is the opportunity to choose things: not just the location or the time you’ll visit, but also the food you’ll order.
My expectations had to be tempered early on in my search for a restaurant in Dublin that captures what’s happening there right now, to ride the butter-topped wave of culinary nowness. The Dublin restaurant scene is extremely complex.
My requests for vital information from local friends revealed two things. First, you may be able to choose your destination, but your options may end there. This is because tasting menus are currently extremely popular.
It consists entirely of long lists of snacks and eccentricities, including tuna Crudo, sea buckthorn koshu, and rare breed pork with barbecued leek, black walnut, and komatsuna. And the prices are excruciating, says the jaded Londoner.
At Liath, it is €180 per person. On Forest Avenue, it’s €98. At Allta it was €95. Variety Jones costs €80, while Mae is only €68. Bastible, the last restaurant I reviewed in Dublin, has now replaced its à la carte menu with tasting menus (€75). Tasting menus make it easier for kitchens to manage staff shortages.
They are also ideal for diners desiring a formal occasion with pomp and waiterly frottage. But what if you don’t want 14 courses that are poised but surprisingly rigid? What if you simply desire dinner?
The second consideration is the need for forethought. A month in advance, almost everything was booked solid. Lisa Cope is the editor of all the food. ie and is one of the most knowledgeable individuals in the city. She told me, “There are not enough good restaurants for the number of people who want to dine in them.”
Therefore, the same 30 are consistently booked weeks in advance. Chapter One, helmed by chef Mickael Viljanen, is Dublin’s hottest ticket. It’s so popular that reservations are only accepted two months in advance.
At 9.29 a.m. on the appointed day, I was ready to go with my 35 years of professional high-altitude typing experience having conditioned my fingers. I was still unable to obtain a table. (Under a pseudonym natch. I am convinced that “George Clooney” is an excellent cover name. They were gone within 45 seconds. I’ve been placed on the waiting list. Now I’m just complaining.
Two days before my trip to Dublin, Mr. Clooney (not really) received a phone call from Chapter One offering him a table. By that time, however, I had secured a table at Note, a new wine bar, and brasserie. In all honesty, I had little interest in the elaborate tasting menu. I am delighted to have found Note.
It is the correct response to the question “Where should I eat in Dublin right now?” The note is a lively, eclectic wine bar where the majority of the food is both bold and satisfying. On a summer evening, the clean-lined wedge of a dining room is bathed in light, and there is a (self) satisfied bubble of chatter; the feeling that you’ve arrived at the correct location.
It is the type of indescribably cool establishment where some of the food is served on truly awful floral plates, the kind your aunt who smelled funky saved for best in 1973. Nevertheless, it makes sense. Who cares what you find when you get down to the glaze when it is concealed by a mess of sauce gribiche topped with slices of deep-fried, salty pig’s ear that are both crisp and chewy?
Katie Seward, who has worked for various companies, including Brawn in London, is in charge of the alcohol. See how these reviews are interconnected? This means that we must be on the lookout for “natural” wines that smell and taste like rotting feces.
I express my terror to Seward, who recognizes that we are in the right: a bright, dry rosé, the color of cough syrup, is followed by a crisp white wine from Piedmont. As always, Dublin’s oppressive taxes will cause your eyes to water and your wallet to tighten. There is nothing less than €30 and very little less than €40. Ours cost €58, which is fairly standard for restaurants in Dublin.
Anchovy toasts are served alongside the pig’s ears; the bread is soaked in the finest Irish butter and flecked with green herbs, and the anchovies have been crumbled into the bread. On the (exorbitantly priced) list of larger dishes are beautifully pink lamb chops served with asparagus, freshly podged peas, and a luscious broth. Pig cheeks that have been braised until they are tender enough to fall apart at the touch of a fork are served with long-roasted onions and endive. A voluminous head of butterhead lettuce is lavishly doused in a salty vinaigrette.
Was everything perfect? Well no. The €32 price tag for the lamb dish is exorbitant, but strangely, it did not feel completely absurd. The price of €13 for an unimpressive salad of tomatoes in a chilled cucumber broth that was grossly deficient in acidity was justified.
Then there is the matter of delivering all the dishes we ordered to the table. Or not. Even though the people who served us were utterly charming and languidly beautiful, a notebook and pen would have helped with the basics of the job.
As the main courses begin to arrive, I nudge the absent anchovy toast. It turns out that the order was never placed. It would have been a travesty to have missed it. The ceviche with stone bass, lime, oregano, and jalapeo sounded delicious. Maybe it was. We’ll never know because that order never made it to the kitchen, let alone back out.
Restaurants in Dublin, like those elsewhere, are having trouble recruiting staff. Recently, the talented executive chef Essa Fakhry has spent the majority of his time working alone. This may explain why dessert consists of either an affogato – a scoop of ice cream topped with a shot of espresso – or a chocolate mousse with cherries and a mountain of cherry foam.
They are, as is currently all too common, items that sound like thoughtful desserts but are not necessarily thoughtful desserts. Even though the shaky parts of the experience must be documented, I still enjoyed Note immensely. It is characterized by contagious enthusiasm. They want you to enjoy yourself. Consequently, we did.
News clips
In August, restaurateur George Pell, one of the owners of London’s renowned L’Escargot, will open a new restaurant in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. The opening of The Suffolk follows the success of the L’Escargot Sur-Mer pop-up restaurant over the past few years.
The renovated 17th-century inn will feature a restaurant with seating for 60, a rooftop terrace, and (eventually) six guest rooms. The opening menu features deep-fried oyster sandwiches, lobster sliders, omelet Arnold Bennett, and langoustines roasted with aioli (the-suffolk.co.uk).
Akwasi Brenya-Mensa, the restaurateur behind Tatale, a pan-African restaurant opening at the Africa Centre in Southwark, London, later this year, has announced a crowdfunding campaign. He hopes to raise £50,000, not only to cover the costs of launching the new restaurant but also to fund “further concepts that celebrate Black and diaspora identities” and “extend the reach of African cuisines.” Those who contribute to the project’s funding will receive a variety of rewards, including Tatale vouchers and cooking classes. Learn more about the crowdfunding campaign here.
Honest Burger will conclude it’s six-month ‘V Honest’ experiment, during which a standard location near London’s Leicester Square went entirely vegan with the promise of ‘an innovative, completely new menu of plant-based burgers, sauces, and sides’ This month, it will resume serving its signature meat-based burgers alongside a smaller selection of vegetarian and vegan options (honestburgers.co.uk).
