Restaurant review: Feed Your Senses
AMONG the multiplicity of new nationalities resident on our shores are more than a few Spaniards, not least in Cork.
If you’ve failed to notice, perhaps you too have been subconsciously stymied by the notion that Spaniards could choose to surrender their glorious climate and country for our own little slice of monsoon at the edge of Europe.
Or maybe it’s because they slot in so well despite the weather, kindred spirits to the native Irish, soul brothers and sisters both very willing to party at the drop of a hat.
More than a few of this latest Spanish ‘invasion’ have found their way into the Irish hospitality trade, including Vicente Ruiz (chef) and Rosa Escribano, the husband and wife team behind Feed Your Senses/Alimenta tus Sensidos (FYS).
FYS is so small, even the flintiest-hearted estate agent would experience a momentary pang of conscience before burrowing deep into his lexicon of synonyms to gloss over the size of the premises.
Yet, though I had cheekily chanced my arm and arrived with an extra, unannounced diner in tow, we are nonetheless very graciously accommodated, albeit at our original table for two, not much bigger than a Monopoly board.
In a charmingly cluttered room barely capable of holding 20 diners, we shuffle up, relishing a privileged intimacy that comes with access to a prized inner sanctum.
In certain parts of epicurean Spain, tapas can reach inspirational heights but generally most offerings reflect its traditional and more humble origins, a simple snack to accompany your drink.
But simple food can also be very good food, especially if the primary ingredients are of the highest quality and it is soon apparent that this is the ethos at FYS. Me and my ‘Lab Monkeys’, J and L, have worked up an appetite elsewhere so order pretty much the entirety of a fittingly compact menu.
First, a delicious morsel, fried dates with an almond ‘heart’, all wrapped in Spanish bacon, toffee-ish date in robust dalliance with salty bacon, harmonious almond, keeping the peace. Chorizos al vino, braised in red wine, is all about the excellence of sumptuous plump little rounds of spicy sausage. Grilled chistorra on sourdough, younger cousins of chorizo are equally appealing.
Gambas al Ajillo are wild Atlantic prawns, sweet, tender, and swimming in hot, garlicky oil, as good as any served back in the motherland. Abondigas, fresh meatballs of Irish beef and pork, are spry and flavoursome. All in all, each dish is a familiar, well-delivered standard from the Spanish tapas canon down to the ubiquitous croquetas, patatas bravas, and Calamares, rings of squid, battered and fried in oil.
Much of Spanish cuisine has its roots in peasant culture, where meat was a scarce luxury, often used sparingly as a grace note for vegetables, rice, and pulses rather than as the main ingredient.
Accordingly, some contemporary Spanish cooks are inclined to act as if paying guests deserve the ‘best’ the house has to offer and the FYS menu is almost bereft of vegetables in any meaningful way.
Even some fresh salads would leaven this quite carnivorous offering, also broadening its appeal to a local audience. But that is a small criticism of what is unpretentious, traditional fare.
But not so the wine — that catches us completely off guard.
Our first bottle is an exquisitely balanced young and carefree Borsao Selección 2104, plummy stone fruits with subtle spicy nuances, it stops us in our tracks and we drain it all too quickly.
To ensure it was no fluke, we order a different bottle, a Rioja (Martinez Lacuesta Crianza 2011). It is equally pleasurable, full, fruity, a toasted spiciness yet a similar lightness of touch.
It turns out Rosa and Vicente import their wines directly, along with much of the Spanish oils, olives, and charcuterie used in the kitchen and have put together a terrific list. Though the food is fine, the superb wines deserve headline billing.
We finish with a lovely nutty room-temperature Manchego cheese with a drizzle of honey and a rough-hewn orange cake; the latter may look like a foundling from a parish hall bake sale but the rich, textured crumb is flush with exotic orange.
Again, both are a triumph of simplicity, rather like FYS itself.
€137.50 (excluding tip)
Monday-Thursday, 5.30pm to 10.30pm; Friday, 5pm-late; Saturday 2pm to late; Sunday, 5pm to 10pm
7/10
8/10
8.5/10
8.5/10
“… a triumph for simple, unpretentious cooking with star billing reserved for a superb winelist.”
