Thorntons. Some people say it is the very best restaurant in Dublin, others find it impersonal and viciously expensive. I had never been but lots of people had been asking me to take them there, casual like, as if the idea had just occurred to them. "What! you haven't done Thorntons yet, let's go there then" kind of thing. In the end I invited food writer, Hugo Arnold, an old friend who knows his way around the most fashionable and expensive food and who could fill in the gaps in my vocabulary between "delicious" and "really delicious".
First, given that Thorntons has a fabulous reputation and a Michelin star, I was surprised to be able to get a table there at all. It was the night before the MTV awards and we were sure that everywhere would be booked solid. Not so. At 6 p.m. they had a table for two for 8.30 p.m., and had we brought a dozen friends along it wouldn't have mattered because there were tables going a begging. Which goes to show that it's better to eat out midweek, rather than a Friday or Saturday when everywhere is packed out and service can be terrible.
A taxi decanted us at the door of Thorntons and we rang the bell in state of suppressed excitement. "Let's not have a drink", said Hugo, keen to move upwards to the first-floor diningroom for the main event. You go up a double-width staircase, which adds a sense of importance, and come out into a spacious room that's comfortable rather than interesting. Our table was at the top of the stairs. This was handy for watching people come and go, but, with the service station close by, it was too busy and exposed for my liking. And anyway all the fun seemed to be going on at the far end of the room, by the windows overlooking the canal.
The corner table was already taken by one of Ireland's wealthiest women, while an author we both recognised, but couldn't put a name to was being entertained by some Americans. A couple of big wigs from the Law Society were also dining, and had a chauffeur waiting outside, as is the smart thing to do now. Why rattle around in a pine-scented old hackney cab when you can have limo service all the way.
We couldn't ask to be moved up to the far end because it would have looked as though we were trying to get away from the foursome at the next table - two blathering show-offs and their wives who talked about golf and the cost of building extensions all evening and who smoked and talked into their mobile phones to their babysitters. Ugh. I felt that the waiter should have done something about the phone, or at least should have kept everyone else away from them, because apart from anything else it's depressing having to listen to people like that bragging how expensive everything is so you'll know that they can afford it. The waiter and the sommelier served them with definite hauteur, but they warmed to Hugo immediately, maybe because he asked their advice about everything.
This was a clever thing to do, particularly in the case of the wine. If you can overcome the suspicion that a wine waiter is there just to recommend the more expensive or difficult-to-shift bottles on the list, then they can do wonders for you. It was a relief to hand over the wine list, which incidentally goes on forever and has the obligatory bottles at over a grand. He chose a nice light Riesling for us to start with, followed by a Chateauneuf de Pape. This saved us a lot of trouble flipping back and forth between France and the New World, with sweat beginning to break out under the armpits. While we didn't leave the choice of dishes to the waiter, Hugo did ask what would be a good starter if he was going to have suckling pig (£26) as a main course. "Oysters" said the waiter straight off, so that's what he ordered. Living in London, he is used to the opinionated waiter who will deny you a starter if he things it will clash with the main event.
Anyway, in this case I followed his lead because the starters sounded complicated and strange - who for instance would want to begin with loin of lamb? I was going to have roast partridge (£2 8) as a main course, so the waiter immediately recommended the sauteed prawns (£15.50) to begin. But first there was a startlingly good appetiser - a tiny cup of white bean soup with a golden dot of white truffle oil in it. "This is very good. You can really taste the bean in it, said Hugo, though I was more impressed by the truffle oil which you could smell from 20 paces. The bread basket came around once, and had the usual selection of white, brown, tomato etc rolls. I couldn't taste much trace of pistachio in my tiny light roll, but it was useful for mopping up juices.
My prawns were big and juicy in an incredibly flavourful sauce of prawn bisque and truffle. A lot of reducing had gone on behind the scene to present this one dish, and it was worth every penny. But it paled in comparison to Hugo's big platter of oysters in a champagne sauce with generous dollops of caviar on top. It was totally luxury, the sort of thing that Russian aristocrats probably had as a light snack before the peasants revolted. It put us in high good form, but in fact this was the highlight of the meal.
My partridge sounded fairly straightforward on the menu, but it had been played around with to such a degree that you wouldn't know where to start on the plate. The breast had been sliced and was cooling rapidly; more meat had been forced into a fat ravioli, while the leg meat was fashioned into a sausage with a bone sticking out at one end. There was tiny fried quail's egg, and a tarte tatin of shallots and a trio of hazelnuts dipped in sugar syrup that had been drawn up to look like the onion domes of the Kremlin. The overall taste was of the farmyard, strong and authentic, but it was too complicated and witty for me.
Hugo's suckling pig had also been deconstructed so that there were various bits of it sitting on a dense sticky gravy. It too tasted disturbingly rural, and he loved it. Tiny buttered new potatoes were served from a little copper saucepan, but not left on the table and there were no vegetables.
We paused before tackling desserts. "I can't get over the prices," said Hugo. I wanted to have the Valhrona chocolate plate for two - a mere £17 - but instead we ordered cheese, and got a nice selection straight from the market at Rungis, if I was understanding the French waiter correctly. Four tiny wedges of cheese bursting from their respective skins and smelling strongly of, well, old socks and cabbage. Delicious served on the tiny rounds of bread instead of crackers.
After that we shared a tarte tatin, also tiny, with a pearl of ice cream on top. And we also got little individual ramekins of berries with some sort of sauce, that neither of us liked very much. Coffee, tea and the tiniest jewel-like petit fours followed and we sat on over these until everyone, bar the lawyers had left. Would we go again? Not immediately, at almost £200 for two. The food was exquisite in parts, the service excellent, the atmosphere welcoming and warm. Expense account heaven, but hell on the personal charge card.
Thornton's Restaurant, 1 Portobello Road, Dublin 8, Tel: 01 454 9067
Orna Mulcahy can be contacted at omulcahy@irish-times.ie
