RESTAURANT REVIEW - FIRST FLOOR - HARVEY NICHOLS
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Just as I made a reprise visit to the First Floor Restaurant at Harvey Nichols, it was announced that we are in for a revival of TV’s ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. It seems a lifetime ago since Patsy and Edina flaunted themselves around London, Bolly Stolly in hand. Will they now be aged eccentric rag bags still venting their spleen over double Gins……not to mention chins. Harvey Nicks was their store of choice and there was great excitement in 2005 when Dublin was graced with a branch. Le tout ladies who lunched were agog…until their Bank balances dwindled…..
As well as clothes Harvey Nicks are known for their Food Halls and restaurants. In Dublin they gave us the First Floor restaurant, complete with flash cocktail bar, set in a glass box overlooking the Mill Pond in Dundrum Town Centre. The kitchen was presided over by chef Thomas Haughton who departed last year to open what was the flash in the pan that was Pinot’s, the former South Bar & Grill, a white elephant opened initially by Ronan Ryan. Haughton was replaced by Adrian Roche, ex Jacob’s Ladder in Nassau Street – now Stephen McAllister’s excellent ‘Pig’s Ear’! However, we arrived to discover that Adrian Roche had also departed HN and one Philip Mahon was on his third day in office! Just what a chef needs – a restaurant critic before you have your feet under the table. Mahon was previously at Dylan McGrath’s erstwhile Mint in Ranelagh and subsequently the Ritz Carlton in Enniskerry.
The meeter greeter led off to a table in the middle of the floor in a restaurant with only four people, whereupon I asked for a window table. “If you wish.” he replied. Off to the other end of the restaurant to another table in the middle of the floor! “Can we not sit there?” I asked pointing at a comfortable leather couch seat by the window. “If you wish”! I cannot for the life of me work out why I had to push for a decent table in a restaurant that only saw six more people all evening.
With a cocktail bar to hand we kicked off with a Mojito (€10) and a Caipirinha (€10) whilst taking in the menus. Starters €6.95/€13.50 included chicken and cep ballontine with lamb sweetbreads and micro shoots. Ham hock terrine had potato salad and cornichons, whilst roast quail was on pearl barley and corn risotto with chanterelles and a raspberry jus– so perfectly Ab Fab retro! A trio of asparagus spears (€8.50) laid like Prince of Wales feathers, was completed with a crispy twice cooked hens egg at the base, fresh shoots, and Hollandaise smear, and was all very nice. Breads too were gorgeous – black olive, tomato, walnut…. Another trio, this time of seared scallops (€13.50), were like lined up shoulder to shoulder Chorus Girl style interspersed with the vegetable du jour, cauliflower florets, sitting on little squares of black pudding.
Mains €18.50/€24.50 included rib eye and fillet steaks; rack of lamb with aubergine puree, broad beans, and herb polenta; Coq au Vin with red chard, and a good fish selection of hake, monkfish, cod, and halibut. A neat pan fried seabass fillet (€24.50) for me was sitting on a few sections of confit fennel, topped with a good quenelle of black olive tapenade, and a sauce vierge to the side. Rabbit saddle and confit leg pie (€22) for Mary, an afficianado and one of the few I know who prepares it a lot herself in France, thought the bacon wrapped saddle, in four ‘spools’, on wild mushroom, carrot fricasse, carrot and cumin essence and Armagnac jus, a tad dry. She enjoyed the flavour of the confit leg pie much more.
An assiette of cheese (€12) included Comte, Pont L’Eveque, a Blue and two others and quince jelly. With a bottle of Heartland Viognier 2007 (€34), our bill with water (€5), coffees (€5.50) and 12.5% service included, came to €163.12 They have a a very good Early Evening menu 2/3-course at €24.50/€29.50.
First Floor Restaurant,
Harvey Nichols,
Dundrum Town Centre
Sandyford Road,
Dublin. 16.
Tel: (01) 291-0488
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2011.