Eating out:Affluent Ireland is hardly a monument to good taste, so it is good to be able to report one significant step forward for the Celtic capital. La Stampa, a restaurant for the sort of people who put the words Graham Knuttel and Markey Robinson (and possibly Rolf Harris) in the same sentence as "art", is no more.
That splendid space is now Balzac, a bistro under the baton of Paul Flynn of the Tannery in Dungarvan - Paul Flynn, indeed, who trained with Nico Ladenis and who was head chef at La Stampa when it first opened.
The perma-tanned regulars of La Stampa won't know what hit them. The prices have come down (although it's not exactly cheap), the food is both original and relatively simple, the wine list is more than adequate, the room looks better than ever and most of the diners are going there because it's a good place to eat. Quite a change, then.
Balzac, as it is now called, has its menu on a big card, grub on one side, wine on the other. And the menu is quite unpredictable. These are certainly not the tedious variations on meat and three veg that disgrace most Dublin restaurants. There's stuff like brandade of whiting with escalivada, creamed mushrooms on toast, couscous with roasted beetroot and horseradish, duck boulangere, quail pie, bourride of chicken and leeks, vanilla ice cream with Pedro Ximenez sherry, soft cream cheese with herbs and warm croutons with a glass of Banyuls.
Out front, in the bar, an amiable mixologist creates every variation on the dry martini that you can imagine and several that you can't. Staff smile and zoom about with calm efficiency. It's pretty bloody good.
Caramelised onion tart with Corleggy cheese was an exercise in confident simplicity: impeccable, buttery pastry topped with the onions that had started off being sweated in red wine, I reckon, with a foundation of fresh, tangy farmhouse goat's cheese with a drizzle of basil oil.
Crab crème brûlée with pickled cucumber, a staple of the menu at the Tannery, was almost as good as in Dungarvan: a little cup containing a warm, creamy, slightly jelly-like amalgamation of crab meat, cream and egg, served with little oval slices of melba toast, sharp but sweet cucumber and, alas, a crab claw that had just about thawed through.
Quail pie was a thing of beauty, in every sense: a dome of superb pastry that opened to reveal a combination of just-cooked quail meat, off the bone, with al-dente savoy cabbage and some smoked bacon somewhere. It was served with a little jug of "foie gras sauce" that also seemed to contain cream and perhaps a hint of truffle.
Crispy crubeens and colcannon will not be everyone's idea of bliss, but it approximated pretty closely to mine. Essentially, the trotter had been cleft down the middle and cooked until all that gristle had melted completely. It was then topped with breadcrumbs, spiked with a lot of English mustard and grilled until crisp. A mouthful of this pungent topping with the soft, silky crubeen beneath was heaven - but only as I happen to like pigs' feet. A lot of people would probably prefer to eat insects.
The colcannon was textbook perfect, with green, still faintly crunchy cabbage and small slices of blanched scallion, all bound together by buttery, creamy mashed potato.
I hope the Balzac team keep this delight on the menu. It would go down a treat in Paris or at St John in London, where the odder bits of animals end up in the kitchen, but I'm not sure about Dublin. People here seem to prefer tiger prawns and chilli jam. Oh well. Anyway, filled to the brim with the richness of crubeens, I eschewed standard dessert and shared, instead, a selection of mini madelines, served in a miniature galvanised bucket. Coffee was excellent.
With a couple of very moreish dry martinis (the version favoured by James Bond, apparently, and I can see why), a bottle of still water and a bottle of silky Spanish red, the bill came to a shade under €165.
WINE CHOICE:The short, expensive list kicks off with a selection of sherries from the excellent Barbadillo bodega at €4.50 a glass, but house wines (Pays d'Oc Chardonnay and Merlot) are a steep €27. Sancerre at €52 is outrageous. You have to search for value. Our Rivola - silky Spanish red from the Sardon del Duero - is a sound buy at €33. Mâcon-Villages from the giant Boisset corporation at €35 most certainly isn't. Château Lascombes Margaux 1997 is at its peak, and starting to totter, but is possibly worth €85 (it's being pushed hard on the wholesale market). Sequiot Tempranillo-Cabernet is a chunky Spanish red for €25. Promessa, from the same stable as A Mano Primitivo, is a good buy at €27. At these prices we have a right to expect wines to be spelled correctly, so why the Serghesio, Alegerini and Selvapina?