EATING OUT: All summer, La Stampa has been trumpeting the arrival of the celebrity chef, Jean-Christophe Novelli. But he was nowhere to be seen when Tom Doorley called
What's going on at La Stampa? It's months since Jean-Christophe Novelli's imminent arrival was first trumpeted in his appearance on The Late Late Show. More recently, he was interviewed on Miriam O'Callaghan's chat show, about his association with the restaurant. The "launch" was postponed because of the London bombings, but several journalists attended a dinner there last month to mark the new Novelli venture.
I declined the invitation, as I don't go to restaurant openings. Instead I gave the brave new La Stampa time to settle down. We were into August when I finally ventured into one of the great, if somewhat over-the-top, diningrooms of Ireland - and was handed a wine list bearing the moniker of Bouchard Aîné, lacklustre Burgundy négociants for longer than I care to remember. Surely this is not the Novelli approach to hooch? Then I opened it and found that it was one of the most comprehensively awful wine lists in the city, with prices that would make an emergency plumber blush. This can't be the Novelli experience, I decided.
I was right. There on the bill of fare was J-C's gazpacho (the one that took, oh, 16 goes to get right, causing wags to wonder at his inability to make a simple chilled soup), but in general this menu read both expensively and flatly.
When I was leaving I was told that J-C would be in harness in September and that the, er, launch would be, well, in September, too. So I had gone along and eaten a menu that had very little to do with Monsieur Novelli. It wasn't entirely bad, but it wasn't Novelli. And I guess I wasn't the only person this summer to be confused in this manner.
Then I got a press release announcing that the team at La Stampa was being joined by two new chefs appointed by Novelli. Andrew Turner, who used to work with Marco Pierre White and at the glorious Bennelong, in Sydney, is heralded as head chef, so Nick Woollard no longer holds that role. La Stampa's PR people refer to "finishing touches" at the restaurant.
Is there much point in telling you about our meal? By the time you read this, the menu may well have become sheer, unadulterated Novelli, but I may as well spill the beans anyway.
The gazpacho was fine. It was slightly too salty and perhaps a smidgen warmer than the ideal, but it was pleasant, and the very fine slices of celery in its depth were an attractive surprise.
A goats' cheese terrine, involving roast aubergines and peppers and what have you, was awful. It was clodhopping and almost as salty as the Dead Sea. It should never have been made, let alone allowed to escape from the kitchen.
Almost equally unpleasant but considerably weirder were a couple of quite tasty lamb chops that appeared to have half a hard-boiled egg carefully positioned on top. It was not an egg; it would have been better had it been. It was a mixture of chicken and cheese, minced together and somehow persuaded to set atop the cutlets. It had a texture tending towards that of polystyrene but was marginally less attractive. It had a flavour of sorts but tasted mainly of salt. The cutlets themselves were very good, so one can only wonder what kind of mind created this dish. One with a grudge against lamb, possibly. But the same kitchen managed to produce an impeccable Dover sole, perfectly à point and accompanied by slivered almonds.
One of the puds was hot chocolate fondant, the sun-dried tomato of the dessert world. Can there be a provincial hotel in the land that doesn't do hot chocolate fondant? It was too sweet and not worth waiting for. On the other hand, an apple prisonnier, in which the fruit reposed in good flaky pastry beneath a cage of spun sugar, accompanied by vanilla ice cream and a spirity Calvados sauce, would have been applauded in Normandy.
The bill was far too high for a patchy meal. It came to €180.56, including service, a bottle of mineral water, a bottle of modest red wine and one double espresso. The real deal, the much-vaunted Novelli at La Stampa, whenever it happens, will surely be better than this. I will report in due course.
La Stampa, 35 Dawson Street, Dublin 2, 01-6778611, www.lastampa.ie