The Dunne & Crescenzi empire has expanded, and Tom Doorley likes what he finds in Portobello
How long do I wait before reviewing a new restaurant? This is one of the most frequent of FAQs I get from readers. Generally speaking, I give it a few weeks. Why, I don't know. Perhaps it's a residual sense of decency that has yet to be beaten out of me by the whinging of certain restaurateurs.
After all, restaurants don't tend to do "preview" performances at half-price. In a way - and I feel sure Eddie Hobbs would be with me on this - if you charge full whack from the word go, you should be prepared to be assessed accordingly. And yet, I'm always inclined to wait a bit. Let things settle down. I suppose it's just as well that the average customer doesn't feel any such compunction, or else many restaurants would never get off the ground.
The reason I mention this is because my radar was faulty recently, and I was convinced that Nonna Valentina had been firing on all cylinders for at least a couple of weeks before I rolled up, unbooked, to have a gander. It was only when I sat down that I realised that the opening - not the official opening, I mean the actual opening - had been the night before.
But I was hungry, and so was my guest. And Eileen Dunne (one part of the remarkable tripartite Dunne & Crescenzi partnership) insisted that we sample lots of good stuff. And, reader, I was seduced. The complimentary Bellini (peach juice and Prosecco) sealed my fate. And everyone else in the place got one too, to mark the first day in action.
Anyway, we ate a fine meal. There was a particularly stunning plate of thinly-sliced wild Donegal tuna, cold-smoked, served with capers and onion, and a ball of the creamiest buffalo mozzarella with pungent, salty anchovies inside; the whole affair bathed in a tart combination of fresh mint and creme fraiche.
Main courses were similarly good, and equally exciting. Ravioli of impeccable fresh pasta, just chewy enough, were bathed in a neon sauce of saffron, bright yellow, and as light in consistency as it was intensely flavoured. And a complex dish of quail, minced into a terrine-like state, with truffles, then piped back into the bird's skin and steamed, and cut into thick slices, was meatily delicious. True, it tasted more deeply mushroomy than truffle-scented but, at €18.50, it was a triumph. And the bed of shredded mangetout on which it was served provided a perfect contrast of texture.
A slice of tortino di patate (from Nonna Valentina's repertoire, she being Stefano Crescenzi's granny) was, in a simple way, the acme of the meal: a slice from a cake of crushed potato enriched with little studs of pancetta and pieces of cheese. Superb.
A sample of organic beef fillet, cooked to a point of rareness that still allowed the exterior to have a very attractive degree of crust, was that rare creature: beef, without the benefit of fat or bone, that still packed in a great deal of taste.
Espressos were short (as befits a restaurant closely-related to La Corte) and strong, delivering a caffeine hit. On the short, but punchy wine list, we veered off the well-trodden path with a premium Greco di Tuffo, all the way from Campania, a steely, minerally white that stopped just short of austerity. Proper, grown-up white wine. New World Chardonnay fans would hate it; we loved it.
Next time I visit - which will be soon, as that tortino is calling me - I will have to adopt a cunning disguise, as used by my counterpart in the New York Times. This is because the ever-enthusiastic Eileen showered us with bits and pieces, and then presented us with a bill that, I'm sure, was rather less than the sum of its parts. But prices are exceptionally keen: starters mainly at around €6, main course in the teens, and a distinctly non-rip-off wine list. Right. I'll start with a shaved head, Paul Smith suit and Ray-Bans.
Nonna Valentina, 1 Portobello Road, Dublin 8, 01-4549866