Tom Doorley reviews Hole in the Wall, D7
The last time we ate Damian Gray's food the circumstances were rather different. My family and I were sitting on the terrace at Pavilion on the Park, in Sydney, warmed by autumnal Antipodean sun and enjoying some Houghton White Burgundy (now known as White Classic, to appease European growers). At least Johann and I were; the children were imbibing large quantities of fresh pineapple juice, as you do down under.
As the traffic on the Cahill Expressway rumbled by in the distance we enjoyed some spectacular cooking by Gray, the sort of thing that gets Australian cuisine, in its down-to-earth eclecticism, a very good name.
It was a bit of shock when he told us, after lunch, that he was hoping to return to Dublin, where he had lived for a few years and appeared on our RTÉ programme The Restaurant, to open a cafe in Crumlin. We were gearing up to return to reality, and finding that leaving Australia was far from easy, and here was Gray going out of his way to swap New South Wales for Crumlin.
In the end he stopped short, on Blackhorse Avenue, in north Dublin, where he has been installed for the past couple of months at Hole in the Wall, Ireland's longest and narrowest pub.
So, not long ago, we found ourselves once again being cooked for by Gray, but this time the temperature outside was approaching zero and the surroundings were a little more prosaic.
The food was good - excellent in parts - but I suspect Gray lacks the kitchen support he enjoyed back home in Sydney. Having said that, it's clear a bloody good chef is at work.
And there's more. Prices are keen. I can't think of many places where the side dishes cost €2. And the wine list may well offer the best value in the country. Service is friendly, and the old pub premises have plenty of character. With all of this in its favour, it would be easy to forgive this restaurant a great deal.
But there is little to forgive. The two youngest members of the party skipped starters in favour of a perfect sirloin steak, cooked precisely as they like it: very rare. The consensus was that this was the most skilfully cooked steak they had eaten (the stuff I do at home suffers from the fact that the barbecue grill never gets hot enough), and the mash was pronounced very satisfactory.
The three older members did have starters: a pleasant, simple salad of young spinach with sweet, toasty beetroot, shaved pecorino and halved quail eggs; a crab salad that needed just a touch of mayonnaise to make it very good; and feather-light, home-made potato gnocchi in a very intense sauce of cream and Gorgonzola.
Among the mains, a risotto of roast pumpkin, sage and caramelised onion was a pleasant combination of flavours but no great shakes as a risotto. However, belly pork with finely shredded savoy cabbage and a creamy concoction of pearl barley was pleasingly different and cleverly spiced. Venison was impeccably cooked - charred and sealed on the outside, perfectly rare inside - but had not been hung long enough to develop the gamy, earthy character that this otherwise bland meat needs. When we mentioned this to Gray he assured us that this issue would be addressed by the time you read this. And the celeriac mash and fondant spuds were ace.
A selection of cheeses in good shape, chosen weekly from what's available at Matthews of Baggot Street, was exclusively foreign, but we're not xenophobic. A wickedly delicious cheesecake (made without gelatin, thank heaven) was flavoured with dried fig, dried cranberries and maple syrup and sat on a base of gingery crumbs.
With several double espressos, a great deal of still mineral water and a bottle of white and a bottle of red, this very satisfactory meal for a hungry family of five came to €208.08.
The Dining Room, Hole in the Wall, Blackhorse Avenue, Dublin 7, 01-8389491
Wine Choice
The selection is wildly eclectic with rock-bottom prices. Our Pieropan Soave, the best you can buy, was a mere €23, and our Savigny-les-Beaune from the very posh Domaine Chandon de Briailles, beautifully fragrant but disappointingly short, was a very keen €38. Kim Crawford's Kiwi Pinot is a steal at €23, and I've never seen Ridge Lytton Springs anywhere else at €38.50. Allegrini's silky Amarone, one of the few that I really like, is €56, which is not much more than retail, and the cult Château Roc des Cambes 2002, by the attractively eccentric François Mitjavile, is rarely seen at all, let alone at €75.50. Next time I'll have Jean-Luc Colombo's dark, velvet-textured St Joseph (€36.50) or Domaine Pillot Puligny-Montrachet 2004 (€45).