Why new Cork restaurant #51 Cornmarket scores a perfect 10/10
Tel. 083 010 2321
Opening Hours: Wed to Sat, 9am to 5pm; Sun, 10am to 4pm
My last review (the Farmgate Cafe) was conducted to enable me to calibrate the new hospitality operating environment against a very familiar benchmark but I only first heard of #51 Cornmarket just a short few weeks ago; hardly surprising as business and life partners Anne Zagar and David Devereaux signed the lease for the premises just five weeks before lockdown.
Zagar hails from New Orleans by way of Schull, yet is long enough rooted in West Cork to earn a solid local accent. She was the opening head chef for the ill-fated Rachel’s though I refuse to accord her any blame for its myriad failings. David Devereaux, from the Northside of Cork city, was the head chef in O’Mahony’s of Watergrasshill when it first began to achieve local and national attention.
Some discreet little touches and a carefully curated music playlist have injected the former Parlour Cafe with necessary funk and, when blessed with balmy weather, extra tables on the iconic Coal Quay’s ample plaza adds further to the buzz that first drew me in some weeks ago; a wonderful snack of deep fried courgette flowers and excellent coffee had me instantly resolved to return.
Hot Flapjack, Yoghurt and Poached Organic Pear is No 2 Son’s opening salvo, a veritable brick of oats, hazelnuts and pecans, not overly fatty, moderately sweetened, it could serve equally as cheeky breakfast or virtuous dessert.
A tight little menu may seem overly laden with egg dishes but these eggs are pretty special, most probably cooked sous vide in the shell for the yolk remains a proud globular sphere of rich, golden, runny near-fondant while white is creamy and smooth. A sampling of Eggs Royale reveals a regal triumph, drowned in unctuous Hollandaise sauce, paired with superb buttery house smoked Goatsbridge Rainbow Trout.
No 2 Son’s Brisket, Pickled Onion and Celeriac Remoulade on toasted ciabatta is a sublime example of doing simple things perfectly. Slow cooked beef is tender yet textured, bread yields with a satisfying crunch, pickle sharpens palate and good remoulade ties the finishing bow.
Ballycotton Fish Pie possesses similar, modest charm, prettily presented in cast iron pan, serried ranks of piped puffs of buttery, carmelised mash potato top fresh seafood in delicious creamy sauce. We are ordering extensively with the dual intention of roaming the menu while also bringing home dinner for housebound mouths but it takes superhuman effort to stop eating this blissful comforter — one of the best fish pies I’ve had in many a moon!
An Organic Farm Salad is no mere exercise in assembly, rather a balanced composition of some very fine produce: Ballinrostig Feta, tomatoes, potato, mint, croutons, and nicely astringent greens, including plump, fresh baby kale leaves.
House Cut Chips are substantial wedges, too large to crisp up to my own personal preference, but superb potatoes yields mighty depths of flavour and the only complaint about Bearnaise Sauce concerns volume, which should be of sufficient quantity to utterly drown these terrific tubers.
Another side, Smoked Beef Beignet and Horseradish Celeriac, is a hefty little brick of crisp breaded smokey meat that could easily deputise as a lightish main course if paired with smart green side salad though it could use more of the emollient counterbalance provided by accompanying horseradish celeriac.
Zagar originally trained as a pastry chef but, born with just the regulation single pair of hands, is currently consumed with managing the restaurant so intends to bring in another body to bake to her instructions. Currently, ‘desserts’ consist solely of her range of speciality scones, already a huge hit, but a sample tasting ‘from the lab’, Sticky Toffee Pudding with bourbon, is the class of extraordinarily exquisite sin deserving of eternal damnation and for which I’d happily roast in hell forever.
It is matched by very good coffees from barista Rhia, her extensive knowledge married to infectious enthusiasm. (Her fermented cascara ‘cocktails’, with citrus and tonic, are deliciously crisp.)
We are not quite ready to return to scoring reviews but, were I doing so, this one would feature nines in abundance for #51 is a cracking little cafe/restaurant, delivering near-perfectly: Zagar runs operations superbly and Devereaux has added precision to his penchant for cooking very tasty and thoughtful food. To do all this in the current climate is perhaps even deserving of a perfect ten!
