EATING OUT: Eight years on and old favourite Eden, Dublin's first manifestly cool restaurant, is back on top form, finds Tom Doorley.
It's strange to think Eden is eight years old, having celebrated its birthday on March 8th. Somehow, despite its iconic status in the era of the Celtic Tiger, it seems to have been around for longer. Way back when it was the new kid on the restaurant block it was hailed for various reasons. The most striking was simply the space it occupies. I think I'm right in saying it was the first manifestly cool restaurant in Dublin, the kind of place in which people under 40 could find refuge from the smothering chintziness their parents expected when eating out. Here was a room so high-ceilinged and so naturally lit that it didn't look like a restaurant at all. Detractors said the mosaic wall surfaces made it look like a swimming pool and worried about sitting under the huge suspended planters, but the rest of us loved it. Especially the food.
While Conrad Gallagher was producing food as tall as it was complicated, Eleanor Walsh was dishing up smokies, organic rib-eye and bread-and-butter pudding. With attitude. And the wine list was short and not a slave to geography. Eden was very, very refreshing, and it soon became exceptionally fashionable as well as having comparatively reasonable prices.
Restaurants, of course, have their ups and downs. I'm frequently struck by how often good ones can go into a fatal tailspin while the awful places survive. It probably demonstrates that although there's money in rubbish, it's a lot harder to make a commercial success out of culinary excellence at any level.
Anyway, Eden has had its up and downs too. Eating there a couple of years ago, I felt the performance had slipped. Readers have occasionally suggested the same thing, and so it was with a degree of excitement that I received the news, from an impeccable source, that this Temple Bar icon was right back on song.
And indeed it was. We shared half a dozen Carlingford oysters - chilled, fresh and tasting of the sea - accompanied by a wedge of lime and some Bloody Mary sorbet. I'm a purist about oysters, possibly because I'm a pretty recent and utterly passionate convert, and generally speaking I wouldn't mess around with any kind of bloody sorbet, not in the company of these sublime bivalves. But, true to Eden's thoughtful approach to food, it worked perfectly in a somewhat salty, savoury, crisp kind of way.
It was a bit unfair to insist on ordering fish on a Monday night, but there was no need to worry. Our main courses were among the best seafood I've eaten in ages. And the secret, apart from spanking fresh raw material, was simplicity. This is why so many chefs just can't do fish. They want to be elaborate. At Eden, Michael Durkan demonstrated impressive restraint.
Roast halibut - a meaty chunk of it - was moist and packed with flavour, accompanied by some buttery celeriac mash, an earthy horseradish cream, roast baby beetroot with a touch of balsamic vinegar, and a peppery rocket salad. When it's all written down, I suppose it looks more complex than it was.
Hake was even simpler, fried and served with what was, in effect, a first-class ratatouille (how my heart usually sinks when I see that word on an Irish menu) combined with nutty chickpeas and lots and lots of chopped coriander. I think there may have been a good dollop of lemon juice in there, too. This is the kind of thing I'd like to cook at home.
The theme of simplicity - or, rather, just not cheffing things up - continued into the pud area with a creme brulee that was silky, rich and embellished simply, with a crisp and attractively bitter roof of burnt sugar. There is too much creme brulee about these days, and most of it is closer in consistency to creme caramel than proper burnt cream. Eden does the real thing.
With a brace of good espressos, a bottle of water (at a swingeing €5) and a bottle of Oz Riesling the bill came to €109.90.
WINE CHOICE: The wine list is not as good as the menu. I thought that unascribed wines, such as the bald "Pouilly Fumé", were a thing of the past. Customers should not have to ask the producer's name, and the producer's name is important. Our Pewsey Vale Riesling was a shade dear at €31, but there's good value in superior house wine, such as Backsberg
Chenin Blanc and Domaine Sainte-Marthe Syrah at €22. At €5.75 by the glass, however, you're paying a penalty for moderation. Southern French red
La Cuvée Mythique, at €29, and the now ubiquitous
Dr L Riesling, at €25, are very sound value.