10 GREAT RESTAURANTS TO VISIT THIS SUMMER
Monday 10 June 2013
The 2013 RAI Sunday Life Irish Restaurant Awards takes place tomorrow evening in the Burlington Hotel. It is always a great glamorous night with a fabulous turnout of restaurateurs and chefs from all over the country vying for the top awards. Competition raises standards and a huge amount of work, debate and effort, goes into selecting the winners in the various categories involving Regional Panels and Mystery Guest Visitors, and it is never ever easy for the National Awards Academy to come to a final decision.
The first question asked of a restaurant critic is “what is your favourite restaurant”. For me a good restaurant is not always about twiddly bits of artwork on a plate, it can be good produce simply cooked, wonderful aromatic spices from Asia and the Far East, buzz and crack, the location and the people that make it. Coming up with a list of the 10 Best Restaurants that people should eat in this summer was no easy task. I could more easily do 20 for you always commit the sin of omission - and they hate you forever as they smile from the teeth out - and poison your poisson next visit! I have spread my choice around the country and I am also taking it as a given that our long standing triumvirate of Michelin starred establishments, Chapter One, Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, and Thornton’s are always worth experiencing.
The Greenhouse on Dawson Street is probably the most talked about best restaurant that never got a Michelin Star – as yet! Finnish chef Mickael Viljanen has an artist’s eye for colour, in the current food styling fashion, with each plate being a palate of elements, viands, fish, foams, crispbreads, grains, dustings, ices, micro plants, casually arranged with military precision. Wicklow lamb is with peas, Morels, Iberian ham crème, Parmesan gnocchi and crispy sweetbread. Set Dinner or Tasting menus €60 - €86 are the order of the day in this boutique sized jewel but lunchtime is a clever way to experience top restaurants when 2/3 courses are €25/€30, and a 5-course Tasting Menu is €55. www.thegreenhouserestaurant.ie
Another little bijou, which has risen like cream to the top, is Isabel’s, a sleek sophisticated little restaurant and wine bar hidden in a Georgian basement on Lower Baggot Street. Owned by oenophile Ian Keegan, here Head Chef Niall O’Sullivan has been wowing the punters with his food. Keegan, set out with a dream of quality and provenance, which he stuck to, be it the best Iberian ham, Labneh, or seafood, at good prices. It opens for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Try octopus and crab croquettes with pickled octopus salad and squid ink aioli. www.isabels.ie
Locks Brasserie has a stunning atmospheric location overlooking the drifting swans on Dublin’s Grand Canal at leafy Portobello. A restaurant for nigh on 30 years carrying a certain cachet, it was given a new lease of life three years ago by Pearl Brasserie’s Sebastien Masi and Kirsten Batt. The pair installed Rory Carville as Head Chef, and Frenchman Thomas Pinoncely as Manager, and it is now the holder of a Michelin star for its contemporary French style food. ‘Skate & Scampi’ has fried Skate, bacon, langoustines, pearl barley, Jerusalem artichoke, caper and lemon butter. Grab their Seasonal Market 2-Course Treat Menu at €25 served all evening Sunday to Wednesday and until 7pm Thursday to Saturday. www.locksbrasserie.com
Sunil Ghai of Ananda Indian Restaurant in Dundrum is an outstanding chef in both the Indian or French medium. Owned by Asheesh Dewan of the Jaipur Group, and the London based Michelin starred chef Atul Kochhar, at Ananda you will experience sophisticated contemporary Indian food second to none. Fresh Dingle Bay crabmeat is with onion, sweet chilli, raw mango chutney, crab samosa, squid ink and chilli dip. Try the superb Tasting Menu which includes a glass of Champagne for €50, matched with wines at €80, (available for the whole table only). Bargain buy is their 2-course Early Bird at €21.99 or a 2-course lunch at €15.95 www.anandarestaurant.ie
Olivier Meissonave’s Dax Restaurant is a basement bastion of top-notch contemporary Franco Irish food, service and wine, in understatedly elegant surroundings. Sublime starters include Dublin Bay prawns tartare, Lardo do Colonnata, pickled Wakame seaweed, Avruga Caviar, soy and Mirin or pressed duck foie gras with almonds, gingerbread and lemon gel. A 7-course Surprise Menu is €85, with wine €125, or a cracking 2/3 course TDH at €29.50/€25 Tuesday to Friday only. www.dax.ie
Take a trip out to Donabate, Co. Dublin, where right on the beach you will find the Samphire Restaurant at the Waterside Hotel. In essence this is a hotel diningroom, but what is special is that it not only offers wonderful sea views, but that Executive Head Chef, Tom Walsh, is raising a storm for food in North Co. Dublin, an area where a lot of great food is grown and harvested. Walsh has that magic touch of putting it together on a plate so think of Dublin Bay prawns and fab King scallops, razor clams and a myriad of mushrooms. www.watersidehousehotel.ie
The Lady Helen Room at Mount Juliet Hotel in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, has really raised its profile in the fine dining scenario under Executive Chef, Cormac Rowe. Think Downton Abbey graciousness, with sweet and earnest service. Rowe’s food is sublime in its contemporary pairings and presentations, yet also displays an admirably restrained hand, with top notch Challans Duck given the Moroccan treatment with Bulgar wheat, Ras el Hanout spicing, rhubarb, turnip and yoghurt. Their 8-course Tasting Menu is €65 but you can bag a bargain on Thursday night when it is €55. A la Carte menu also available. www.mountjuliet.ie
n the cool seaside village of Ardmore, Co. Waterford, the White Horses Restaurant captures the away from it all essence of Martha’s Vineyard. Run by three sisters, Christine Power, Geraldine and Angela Flavin, with other members of the family rowing in on busy nights, the food is always ace from whopping succulent Dublin Bay prawns peeking out of their baths of garlic butter deep in the recesses of escargot dishes, to stomping great Dover Sole to old fashioned duck. With great big dishes of gratin potatoes, wonderful vegetables, the glass cabinet of Cordon Bleu style puds, I could eat here every night. Oh yes – and plenty of lobster. www.facebook.com/White-Horses-Restaurant
Marog and Sally O’Brien’s Farmgate Restaurant in Midleton, Co. Cork, is another brilliantly atmospheric spot that attracts customers like bees to a honeypot. Celebrating 30 years in business this year, Farmgate is located in what was originally an old tyre depot but, with an imaginatively impeccable eye, artfully transformed to a room people clamber to be in. The front section is a Food Store and Bakery with a new informal dining area whilst, to the rear, as you sit amidst sculptures and a myriad of art tucking in to fabulous fish, beef, old fashioned stuffed duck. Monkfish is with crab and mussel sauce, grilled turbot comes with Hollandaise and panfried Halibut is with citrus caper butter. www.farmgate.ie
Jp McMahon is an incredibly creative guy who, along with then chef Enda McEvoy (who has moved on), delivered a Michelin Star to the City of the Tribes with his simple tiny Nordic blue terroir based Aniar restaurant. The menu is concise and you will find pairings such as ‘duck, pudding, dandelion, broccoli’, or ‘wild asparagus, nettle, goats curd, hen egg’. The Tasting Menu here is €60, or €90 with wine pairing (full table only.) www.aniarrestaurant.ie
Eat well.
FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT ON JUNE 9, 2013.