Lucinda O'Sullivan's Ireland

About The Restaurant

Kites Restaurant caused a real flutter amongst the social and foodie set when it first opened its doors some twenty years ago and it is still one of the best restaurants in Dublin for Chinese and Thai food. It can be truthfully said that Kites was the first restaurant to give us real upmarket Chinese food at its very best rather than the usual high street fare of yellow curries, which was all we were used to. Up to that time all of the Chinese food on offer was Cantonese, but Kites introduced us to the spices of Szechuan and the sophistication of Peking style dishes.

Set over two floors, the style of the restaurant is modern and minimalist, but plush, very comfortable and elegant. Service is ace, friendly, efficient and humorous. It would want to be because I have had more fun nights there with groups of girls and the staff have always been really nice, mildly amused sometimes, and always helpful and professional in the extreme. Being in Dublin’s Embassy belt, Kites are used to a sophisticated clientele and their food is delicious.

One of my friends, Maeve O’Malley of Enterprise Ireland, lives in New York and the first thing she does when she arrives regularly in Dublin is book Kites – and call me. We had a great night there recently – there were six of us and we shared a variety of foods. We had a real blow out starting with succulent dim sum style prawn dumplings, grilled spicy scallops on skewers, lamb on blackcurrant sauce, and stuffed Lotus with prawn – how exotic is that. We then had a middle course of Aromatic Duck – this is always a real ‘crowd pleaser’ – I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love it – the waiter expertly shreds all the meat and skin from the duck leaving it ready for you to wrap it in little Chinese paper thin pancakes, you then top it with julienned cucumber and spring onions, sweet sticky plum sauce, tuck in the end, wrap it up and it is pure heaven in a bite!

For mains we chose a variety of flavours and meats and fish. We had Char Sui which is roast lean pork with honey sauce, King Prawns coated in chilli and salt – a dry Szechuan dish, more prawns in the form of stir fried spicy prawns in a Thai spicy sauce, fillet of beef with oyster sauce, and a whole steamed seabass with ginger and spring onion, all of which were absolutely superb. We also had a portion of Singapore fried noodles – another favourite of mine – Yong Chow fried rice, and some Chinese Leaves in oyster sauce for greenery! It was some night – with plenty of vino too!

Years ago in London’s top Chinese Restaurant, Mr Chow’s in Knightsbridge, I watched the longstanding wife of Anthony Quinn, the movie star carefully wrap up aromatic duck in rolls and carefully pass them to her husband while he held court – three months later he left her for a younger model. So when you are enjoying your delicious Aromatic Duck rolls in Kites make sure your husband wraps his own!

Kites is a great place to eat.

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