Restaurant review: Cork eatery Mantra has the spice — but more would be nice
The interiors of Cork's Mantra restaurant.
7.5/10
There is a pleasing symmetry about reviewing one restaurant, Nosh 19, just two weeks ago, then stepping next door to review another, 10 paces to walk from one iteration of the world’s great cuisines to another, from Chinese to Indian.
Indeed, it was upon leaving Nosh 19 one evening that I first properly stuck my nose against the large windows into Mantra for a gander.
It is even nicer from the inside as La Daughter and I roll up on a miserable wet weekday evening sorely in need of comfort and spice.
Once home to the pizza restaurant Burnt, where almost everything was coated in black in a rather nihilistic style, the space has now been cleverly redesigned into a vibrant, welcoming room.
A stylish, modern, cocktail-style bar facing the entrance is first to catch the eye. Leather banquette seating runs along one mirrored wall at one side.
Teal is the dominant colour: Painted on walls, pillars, panelling, ceiling, and woven through a swirling William Morris-style floral wallpaper and an art deco take on classical Indian floor tiles, which simultaneously define and expand the room.
It is a stylish, contemporary space befitting of any upmarket restaurant, no matter the menu.
Similar to our experience with the ‘Irish Chinese’, when Indian restaurants first started springing up around the country in the 1970s and then really taking off in the 1980s, the Irish diner was an infinitely less travelled and infinitely more cautious beast.
Restaurant and diner appeared to meet in the middle with a compromise that saw familiar proteins — chicken, beef, lamb — served up with an array of spiced sauces, then novel to the Irish palate but well shy of that fiery, chilli burn and deeper complexity of flavour that comes with authentic Indian fare.
That old-school model has changed dramatically in recent years, all for the better, with Dublin restaurants such as Jaipur and Pickle leading the charge, while Gautham Iyer’s since-shuttered Iyer’s Cafe and Chris Braganza’s Spice Genie food truck have introduced Cork diners to their own wonderful takes on the real deal.
During an initial swift scan of the menu, I’m arrested by the inclusion of chips, suggesting business partners and fellow chefs Bibek Sapkota (running front of house) and Anil Bimali (head chef), have no intention of startling the local horses.
Two rather lacklustre chutneys, tomato and overly sweet mango, that arrive with the complimentary poppadoms appear to suggest culinary caution.
I’m transfixed by a glamorous dish arriving at the next table, smothered in spiced yogurt, rather like a shabby-chic wedding cake.
It turns out to be a dish we have also ordered, alu tikki (€11): Potato cakes with ginger, green peas, and raisin, served with a lovely sweet-sour date and tamarind chutney, perky mint chutney, and surrounded by a scattering of nylon sev — hair-thin fried gram flour noodles.
Two of our other starters — vegetable bhajjia (€10) of potato, onion, and spinach, and punjabi samosa chaat (€11) — are served with precisely the same accompaniments as the alu tikki.
The problem is, while all three are billed on the menu as ‘crispy’, the chutneys and yogurt, rather than being served in side dishes as would be more usual, are used to dress the main element. By the time we ferret them out, all three are long past ‘crispy’.
Bimali and Sapkota both have extensive experience in Indian and western-style menus; the plating appears to be an attempt to incorporate the stylistic tropes of the latter.
A shame, because each is tasty in its own right, flavours that would be far better served by allowing the diner to do the dressing. It is a simple fix I hope they make.
As a result, kurkuri jhinga (€13) stand out even more: Tiger prawns dipped in rice and corn flour and deep-fried. A delightfully crispy interior houses hot, sweet prawn.
Nigella and fennel seeds and curry leaf add subtle complexity, and a smart chilli-tomato sauce with creamy, bright dill raita are perfect finishing companions.
For mains, we order a thali (€30), a mixed platter of little dishes serving up multiple options from the menu, a handy way for the pair of us to dive deeper into the range of the menu.
We also order dal makhani (€16) — lentils slow-cooked with tomato and garam masala for 36 hours, until it is creamy, velvety, and lustrous with a buttery (makhani) sheen.
I am quite a fiend for dal, reckoning it could even cure death, and this lush bowl of healing is right up there.
I am surprised, however, that when ordering, our server didn’t mention our thali also included dal makhani but, then again, maybe he quite rightly reckoned you can never get enough dal.
Thali ‘proteins’ include more prawns; butter chicken tikka, in an onion and tomato sauce, finished with fenugreek and cream; and lamb saag, with a gingery puréed spinach.
Lamb and chicken are pleasant, but I’d relish if spice levels, especially chilli, were cranked up more than a few notches.
It also includes house special aloo: Deep-fried potatoes with coriander, tamarind, and chilli, salad, mixed chilli pickle, and raita; to mop up, plain naan, spicy papad and saffron pilau rice.
Mantra is a lovely restaurant, with some lovely food and especially lovely staff and service; a little tweaking on the plate and it will truly shine.
- Mantra
- 21-22 Princes Street, Cork city
- Dinner for two, including wine, €148
- mantracork.ie
