Restaurant Review: Sage restaurant, Cork
A menu, one printed on decent paper, that shows some basic understanding of how typography can declare ambition, communicate ethos and, very occasionally, sing we’re-in-the-right-place can make even a jaded diner sit up and take notice. A clear, thoughtfully presented menu — the document, not the food — can hint or even scream that your hosts know what it takes to do things properly.
Unfortunately the converse is equally true. Those grease-flecked Magna Cartas of life-sapping tat, the ones that don’t know a pica from a point are usually harbingers of spicy chicken wings — or Buffalo wings if pretension has outstripped mediocrity.
First impressions are indeed almost everything and in Kevin Aherne’s Sage they are more than enough to make even the most sated diner take notice. A simple, well-presented menu, almost Calvinist but far, far more indulgent than anything that dreary, bullying French zealot might allow whets everything. The rooms — there are two dining areas — have a buzzing, house-full atmosphere and are red-carpet inviting.
The walls are dressed with photographs celebrating some of those famous artisan producers who grow, smoke, catch, rear or brew — micro-brewery beers are a theme of the house — the ingredients that go to make the dishes the restaurant offers. The portraits add a certain edgy, political consciousness to the evening as the restaurant aspires to use only food produced within a 12-mile radius of its courtyard location. And though that seems a difficult objective — olives in Leamlara anyone? Anchovies in Aghada? Swordfish off Knockadoon? — it is commendable and one we should all adopt. Even if we stretched that radius to 50 miles we would eat very well and do something significant, and dare I say it in these days of a plague-on-all-their-house incandescence, patriotic.
Then there are the myriad reviews, one more celebratory of Kevin Aherne’s work than the other. So many laurels that they must almost be a burden. Like the angler who died and thought he had gone to heaven when he caught a good trout on every single cast, the gift soon becomes a burden. This piece will not lighten that load, the food was too good.
DW and I visited on a very busy Saturday night and she opened with a plate that had the most understated description I’ve seen in a long, long time. Apple, Brussels sprout and white turnip hardly seems a description that will win a gong (faux gold of course) at a marketing convention; it hardly rings with seduction. What a simple, wonderful corsage of taste, texture and authenticity it was. It was as pure a celebration of the beauty of simplicity I’ve seen on a plate in a while. The sum of the individual parts and all that ... really good.
My starter read like a PD James mystery. How could you not want to know what a celebrated chef would send out if you asked for “egg yolk, mushroom broth, fermented potato bread, bone marrow”. I could tell you but that would spoil the mystery. However, I can say that it was every bit as satisfying as any PD James’ whodunnit.
For her main course DW had scallop, shitake mushroom, young spinach and celeriac. I can’t give an honest opinion as I didn’t get a pick, not even a sliver. This is the first time in over 30 years sharing thousands of tables that I’ve seen DW so jealously guard a plate. Go figure. I had monkfish, bearnaise, spinach and tomato salsa and I didn’t share either. Go figure again. It was a lovely combination and almost makes me want to use a word, one beginning with “s” and ending with “y” that I foreswore to use, ever, when talking about food.
Desserts, a one-dimensional cheese plate — every evening has one small blip — and a lovely chocolate brownie and spiced panna cotta were excellent bookends.
This was a wonderful dinner — and it cost less than a local institution now charges for a pretty iffy Sunday lunch. Book a table before Kevin Aherne is lured away by the bright lights of some faraway city.
Three course dinner with wine (a neat Portuguese Alvarinho, Soalheiro at €33.00) cost €129.50. Tip extra and not accepted by credit card.
Open every day except Monday serving lunch, early bird and dinner
8.5/10
8.5/10
9/10
9/10
Sage,
The Courtyard,
Main St,
Midleton,
Co Cork,
021-4639682,
www.sagerestaurant.ie
