In recent years, it seems many cutting-edge chefs have come out of the North, their exemplary skills fostered by one of the brightest and most creative restaurant cultures in the country. But, aside from well-known names such as Paul and Jeanne Rankin, Michael Deane and Robbie Millar, a new breed of middle-market restaurants are sprouting up, a vital addendum to the cutting edge. Here is a quartet of new arrivals, each producing good food in good rooms.
Fontana
Fontana is the hottest restaurant room in Holywood, Co Down, a prosperous suburb of the Gold Coast blessed with lots of good places to eat. But Colleen Bennett's room has stolen the hearts and lightened the wallets of the locals, largely because when the cooking is good, it is very good indeed, and the room is energised, modern and very well executed.
Fontana is all about a marriage of good food and a good space, and it's no surprise that it is such a success.
Bennett is, like Jeanne Rankin of Roscoff, a Canadian, and, like Paul Rankin of Roscoff, where she worked before opening this upstairs room on the Main Street, she likes to cook in a light, eclectic, modern style, something which edges close to fusion food but without the wacky combinations and symmetries of that style.
Her heart lies with the flavours of the Mediterranean: she makes a dish of Chargrilled Monkfish with Creamy Polenta and a Smoked Chilli Butter which is perfect in every detail, the polenta wondrously creamy, the fish practically hopping with freshness, the heat of the chilli butter beautifully judged.
When Bennett cooks like this, her work is hard to fault: excellent Roast Pumpkin Soup with Coriander oil; Chargrilled Squid with Chilli Oil and Salad Leaves; a terrific dish of Lamb with Hummus, Aubergine, Tomato and Olives. This is smart food, light, composed, flavourful and very enjoyable.
When she strays away from the sweet flavours of the Mediterranean, her touch is less certain. Salmon Tostada with a Red Onion and Tomato Salsa, Guacamole and a Chive Creme Fraiche, presents flavours which simply don't work together, and like many chefs she has difficulty in making a noodle cake worth eating, or in convincing you that the seared duck and sesame ginger vinaigrette which pair with it are worth your while.
Her sureness with sweet things is shown with desserts, and nursery dishes such as apple crumble and a great gingerbread ice cream are spot-on. Service is good, the music is great and the room is jumping. Here is a place to return to, pretty often.
Fontana, 61A High Street, Holywood, Co Down, tel: 08 01232 809908 Open: noon-2.30 p.m., 6.30 p.m.-10 p.m. Tues-Sat, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. Major cards.
The Genoa Bistro
Gary Veattie's cooking reminds me of the early work of Michael Deane, when he cooked in The Square, in Helen's Bay. No surprise here, because Veattie was a pupil of Michael Deane and worked with him in that very restaurant. His cooking in Bangor's Genoa Bistro is wonderfully satisfying in its ability to bring out every aspect of flavour of a piece of meat or some terrifically fresh fish. His braised lamb shank, for example, is in culinary terms the equivalent of Eugene Callaghan's confit of duck, or of Derry Clarke's pork cooking. On the day of our lunch Veattie served it with a cabbage and chorizo mash and a sweet red onion jus. The shank had been part braised, part roasted and was gifted with the moistness of the braising and the tastiness of the roasting. It was superb.
Spinach, Broccoli and Mozzarella Tart showed how composed a cook he is, with the Roquefort pesto which accompanied the tart restrained, very much a background player. This again shows the influence of Michael Deane, who weaves chilli, garlic, blue cheese and other punchy essences into the background of many of dishes, but never lets them interfere with the dishe's main thrust.
All the buzz words appear on Genoa's menu: grilled goat's cheese; beetroot vinaigrette; chorizo; lamb shank; roast hake; bruschetta; ribeye steak, and Robbie Millar's influence shows, for example, in the use of Taleggio cheese with chicken.
But, like the other great cooks of the North, Veattie understands exactly how to use these ingredients, and so his cooking is not a 1990s mish-mash or modern cooking by numbers, but combines punchiness, lightness and nurturing all at once. He reconciles restaurant flair with homecooked flavours in a very gratifying style.
The location of the restaurant in a basement, near the new marina, makes things a little tricky for Robin Mulholland and his team, and Bangor is not a happening town right now. But a marina crowd should help keep Genoa busy. Robin Mulholland, the owner, makes an affable front of house manager, and while service can be a little slow, hopefully this will improve with more confidence and time. For now, however, Gary Veattie is the star of Genoa.
Genoa, 1A Seacliff Road, Bangor, Co Down, tel: 08 01247 469253. Open: Tues-Sat, 7 p.m.- 9.30 p.m.
K-eating
This is how Eamon Keating styles the title of his eponymous restaurant on Belfast's Great Victoria Street. The room has been home to various bistros and cafes over the years, but the Keating transformation has given it its best appearance. Simple and functional, it is a comfortable place.
Eamon Keating worked front of house for years in Roscoff - a stone's throw up the street in the direction of Shaftesbury Square - but his own restaurant has not tried to mimic his former workplace in any way.
Keating's mixes the style of a bistro - pop music from the 1970s and 1980s on the stereo and informal service - with the food of a brasserie - Crispy Fried Squid with Oriental Salad; Harissa Spiced Chicken; Sirloin of Beef with Puy Lentil Puree; Tempura of Monkfish with Bak Choy.
Thoughtfully, there is a complete page on the menu with dishes for vegetarians: Warm Goat's Cheese Salad with Grilled Vegetables; Tagliatelle with Corn and Black Bean Salsa; Watercress Salad with Potato Skins and Red Onion Ketchup are just some of the choices.
For an informal lunch, I ordered Crab Meat Frittata with Tomato and Herbs to start, and was given a lovely, sweet, eggy dish with bright flavours, light as a breath and expertly rendered, a few salad leaves well dressed with a good pesto.
My main course of braised lamb shank (everyone, but everyone, in the North is cooking lamb shank, and black beans. I haven't come across them being served together yet, but just give them time) was served with a garlic mash and butter-roasted leeks with some florets of broccoli.
The shank was good and so was the mash, but the leeks were a little too large and woody for the dish: you really need baby leeks to successfully achieve the sweetness which roasting in butter will give the vegetable.
A fruit tart should have been better, but coffee was excellent and the staff were exceptionally good, and very adept at catering to the needs of a lunchtime audience which included every type of hungry soul you could imagine.
K-eating, 103 Great Victoria Street, Belfast BT2 7AG, tel: 08 01232 549949. Open: 12.30 p.m.- 2.30 p.m. Mon-Fri, 5.30 p.m.-11 p.m. Mon-Sat.
Metro Brasserie
In Metro, Jason Skidmore has a good brasserie in which to show that he is a good brasserie cook. Part of the smart complex which houses the Crescent Townhouse and Bar Twelve in that smart part of Belfast arranged around Botanic Avenue, the room is decked out with bright floor tiles, big mirrors, muted-coloured banquettes, and a raised woodenfloored section cordoned off by fancy metal railings. The snappiness of the staff and the speed of the service completes a funky room.
Skidmore arrived at Metro after working with Robbie Millar, in Shanks, and he has wisely tailored his cooking to suit the nature of the room and the demands of his city-centre audience. There is a rush-hour menu offered between 6 p.m. and 7.30 p.m., before the dinner menu proper kicks in, and it is exceptional value for money: two courses and coffee for less than a tenner, three courses and coffee for only £12.50.
Skidmore is aware of the need, in a room such as Metro, to create a good buzz, and his staff, especially his fiancee Lynda James who manages the room, help him to create the right mood: on a Friday night, this place was jumping.
The food, then, strikes the right note for the room and the crowd: rare beef is served with oriental salad leaves and good, salty black beans, and the fashionable stance of the dish doesn't get in the way of the directness of the flavours. Thai-style fritters with peanuts and shiitake are even better: a pair of deep-fried orbs have punchy, earthy flavours, a very clever starter.
Main courses are effectively a definition of brasserie cooking: Cod with Gremolata; Corn-fed Chicken with Red Cabbage; Fillet of Beef with Polenta; Duck Confit with Sauteed New Potatoes. Lamb chops come with Lyonnaise potatoes - a dish which sadly, is rarely found on menus now - and both are excellent, some blue cheese, walnuts and sage leaves whooping the dish into a frenzy of flavours. Roasted Fillet of Hake with a Corned Beef and Lobster Hash and a Red Wine Jus is terrific, the fish cooked superbly, the hash a clever and original mixture, and the jus judged just right. Vegetables were ribbons of leek, batons of carrot and some steamed potatoes, and were almost superfluous, given the variety and assertiveness of the flavours on the plate.
Desserts didn't match the standards of the savoury cooking: a rich chocolate tart was disappointing, a chocolate and pear knickerbocker glory was a fun idea but didn't add up to much. But the energy of the room, and the sheer good time which Metro offers, meant it was easy to overlook this failing.
Metro Brasserie, 13 Lower Crescent, Belfast BT7 1NR, tel: 08 01232 323349 Open: noon-2.30 p.m. Mon-Fri, 6 p.m.-9.30 p.m. Mon-Thurs (open until 10 p.m., Fri and Sat).