Donnybrook Fair Café is the new Dublin 4 canteen, writes Tom Doorley
There's a first time for everything. I have never before eaten in the same restaurant on two days running, but I have just done so in the latest embellishment to the Dublin 4 modus vivendi.
Ah, Dublin 4. Over the years the letters column of The Irish Times has been full of attacks on the so-called Dublin 4 mindset. As to what this actually means, I'm a bit hazy, but I think I'm right in saying that it includes a shameless indifference to headage payments, a somewhat half-hearted approach to the restoration of the Irish language, a tendency not to be frightened of sushi and a preference for mainstream political parties over the . . . er. . . Provisional movement. Of course, the rise in property prices must surely mean that whole swathes of the Dublin 4-minded have migrated, not just to Dublin 6, but perhaps even to the leafier suburbs of Navan and Mullingar. I'm sure somebody is doing a PhD on it.
Anyway, Donnybrook Fair is the Dublin 4 food and drink shop - not a supermarket, my dear - and very good it is, too, even though the prices of most items seem to be linked to the Herbert Park Property Index. The newly-opened Donnybrook Fair Café is the new Dublin 4 canteen.
Now, let's be very clear about this. While doing the weekly shop downstairs would leave the average PAYE worker in anaphylactic shock, eating and drinking in the impeccably designed and really rather cool caff upstairs is highly affordable. There's a delightful and accessible wine list and a menu with main courses averaging in the mid-teens. Donnybrook Fair Café is a bloody good idea and they have got most things right. Unfortunately that does not - as yet - include the food.
Our starters at dinner were okay. Plum tomato and basil tartlet involved raw, but fairly flavoursome slices of tomato on a puff pastry base, with a crunchy mizuna salad and little balls of mozzarella. Seared scallops with celeriac puree and pancetta was a good idea, but low on flavour.
As starters, they passed muster. However, the Dry Hung 12oz Sirloin Steak, to quote the menu, was as tasty as piece of cardboard. I don't care if it is wet aged, dry aged or hanged, drawn and quartered. This country produces the best beef in the world, and this sorry example was pathetic. It had been anointed with some Cafe de Paris butter and the taste of curry powder and anchovy did nothing to disguise the lack of flavour. Pont Neuf spuds, or posh chips to most of us, were good, and presented like a Rubik cube.
Loin of veal - a very small slice - had marginally more flavour than the steak, but suffered from an unpleasantly spongy texture which good potato and carrot rosti and a madeira gravy tried valiantly to rescue, but in vain.
Rice pudding creme brulee was an experiment worth trying. Essentially, there was a layer of rhubarb puree, then the pudding, then the rather dense brulee. It wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds but as innovations go, perhaps it should go. A hot chocolate fondant, on the other hand, was first class, the moral being that you shouldn't muck about with the classics.
Coffee was excellent (espressos served, in Italian style, with a little glass of water on the side), the beer list is good (I gratefully reacquainted myself with Samuel Adams), and the bill, including a €48 bottle of wine, a glass of white and a large mineral water, came to €117.10. The steak was deducted.
I went back for a solitary lunch the next day, largely because I liked the sound of ham hock terrine with sauce gribiche. Alas, it was off, so I settled for an adequate, but rather flat, Caesar salad and a very good hamburger on toasted foccacia with homemade relish. With a glass of red, a glass of white and a double espresso this came to €30.20.
Donnybrook Fair is very close to being very good.
Donnybrook Fair Café, 91 Morehampton road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, 01-6683440.
WINE CHOICE
A half bottle of bone dry, fresh La Guita Manzanilla sherry for €6? Brilliant. And generous glasses of Hugues Le Juste Sauvignon sur Lie and Pelican Bleu Grenache/Syrah for €4.50 (€18/bottle), likewise. Other highlights include the juicy white Zenato Lugana (€22), flinty Howard Park Riesling (€35) from the Madfish Bay stable, good decent claret in the form of Château Meaume 2000 (€21), Moillard's zippy Côtes de Beaune Villages (€32) and ripe, vanilla-scented Gran Feudo reserva (€24) from Navarra. There is also a whole wall of fine wines with a set €15 mark-up that makes very serious stuff very affordable. Our d'Arenberg The Dead Arm Shiraz (€48) was a case in point.