Restaurant Review: Zamora, Cork
“Will you step into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly; “’Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy. The way into my parlor is up a winding stair, And I have many pretty things to show when you are there ... ”
... when they decided to run a little wine shop from one corner of the dining room.
Anyone curious about wine could hardly resist a little peruse, a little sniff in the parlour of pleasures. And so it transpired, even before I sat at our table — DW as ever — I was ensnared in the web.
And what pretty things were on show, a nice selection of very drinkable wines each almost as beguiling as the spider was to the fly.
And why wouldn’t they be? The people behind Zamora, Bubble Brothers, are also the people behind wine dealers so the synergy is almost spider-web perfect. And, despite invocations from the wise and well-intentioned that we forswear the hooch for January, a really nice Famille Perrin Gigondas was sent to our table.
It is another of the bizarre realities around wine pricing in Irish restaurants that a wine listed at €33 can become a wine costing €43 when it reaches a table just a few feet from the wine shop.
This may not have been a wedding-feast-at-Cana transformation, and it is not by any means specifically a Zamora issue, but it just shows one more time how consumers are like flies in a web when they try to buy a half decent wine in a restaurant.
A little notice about corkage would have been appropriate, though our waiter did give us every opportunity to recant and choose something less expensive from the wine list.
I’d be dishonest if I pretended that it didn’t rankle just a little, especially as in this instance the house had the wholesaler’s margin, the retailer’s margin and the restaurant’s margin. Standard business practice it maybe but as a consumer it’s hard not to feel a little bit like a fly realising that they’ve been caught in the web.
The Zamora menu is a series of light dishes, more metrosexual dainty than substantial, trenchers’ belt-looseners.
The most expensive main course listed on the standard menu stood at €13.95 — Duck leg confit, lentil salad and dressings — but one of the specials on offer — steak— pushed the boat out to €19.00 so the entire menu is set at a very attractive price point.
DW asked for a little bowl of olives to start and she got exactly that, sweet, pungent little knobs of oil and taste. I had chicken livers on toast — and it was very good toast and that’s not always the case. The livers had that lovely earthy, almost musty presence that sets good offal apart. Very enjoyable indeed.
For her main course DW had warm salad of panko-crumbed goat’s cheese, beetroot relish, leaves and walnuts. She was completely satisfied and the dish was exactly as was described and perfect for the post-Christmas fortitude we might all be wise to sustain for a tad longer.
I was hungry and chose a steak because I suspected the alternatives might not have whetted an appetite built up over a long day. It was served ready-sliced and with a sauce — more of a paste really — of chilli and garlic which set the lovely rib-eye off splendidly. As sub-€20 steaks go this was very hard to beat.
Desserts — apple and blackberry crumble and a chocolate brownie — were very good and rounded things off splendidly. Zamora offers good food and good service at good prices though it may not be the place to bring a very hungry caveman.
And an aside ... we arrived in Zamora fortuitously. We had tried to get a table at another new restaurant, one that does not take bookings. When we arrived the place was full — so be it. A waiter suggested that a table might be free in an hour or so and took a phone number promising to ring us when he had one.
I’m still waiting for the call. How things change! Where was it? Well it rhymes with Cleo Laine.
€93.30 — the wine was €43.00 see above — for a three course— light— dinner for two, tip extra
Monday: 10am to 6pm Tuesday-Saturday: 10am to late
Food: 7½/10
Service: 8½/10
Value: 8½/10
Atmosphere: 8½/10
Wine: 8½/10
11/12 Academy Street,
Cork;
tel: 021-2390540,
www.zamora.ie
