Restaurant review: Cask, Cork city
Cask is located in gorgeous old Victorian buildings that are also home to its sister-hospitality ventures, Isaac’s hotel and Greene’s restaurant, on venerable old MacCurtain St. The interior is dazzling, a steampunk take on an old Victorian gin palace: cast iron fixtures; ubiquitous filament bulbs; plenty of bright, shiny surfaces to reflect their light.
This is the hot new ticket in town and, on foot of apocryphal tales of huge crowds, we deliberately aim for Sunday evening but, even so, all tables are taken.
From a temporary perch at the bar, we peruse a sizeable 16-page menu.
No one offers us guidance and, with a keen edge to our hunger, we order swiftly before turning to the much-trumpeted cocktail list.
Only then do we discover two more pages of food offerings, scurrying frantically to cancel our original order.
A table becomes available by the large street-front window and My Heart’s Delight, pounces. But I’m soon feeling like a goldfish in a multi-story carpark for, even at this off-peak hour, endless traffic and gawping punters funnel past.
Having taken such trouble with the interiors, transition between street and premises should be total — perhaps a partial frosting of windows to chest height, allowing passersby a tantalising glimpse while affording customers a private sanctuary?
We dive for the next available table.
We are seeking a red wine to work equally well with fish as with meat but our waiter is unsure and none the wiser about the whites, so heads barwards to further consult.
Food arrives, ferried from the kitchen by chefs.
Our table becomes cluttered as empties remain; we’re still waiting for wine.
Eventually, I catch our server’s eye. We had been forgotten. The bar staff are equally as vague about the winelist.
I choose a New Zealand Pinot Noir, Old Coach Road (2015), bright red fruit with a peppery nip; at €39.95, a corresponding nip to wallet.
A Portuguese friend introduced me to Salt Cod Brandade: boiled potato, pureed with olive oil, added to at least an equal amount of salt cod, ideally served warm.
One of the great Iberian dishes, it is a sublime comfort adored by all ages but this version is cold mash potato, no olive oil and scant fish.
Rings Farm Chicken Drumsticks with Green Saffron Tikka Masala feature good gamey meat with a gently spiced crust but are overly dry, in need of succulence and more acidity than accompanying raita supplies.
Things improve with pork belly in a steamed Chinese bao bun, perky, tart carrot and sesame kimchi adding crunchy texture.
A cassoulet of Skeaghanore Confit Duck with smoked sausage and butter beans is a wholesome cousin to blowtorched medallions of monkfish in tomato, chorizo and bean stew; both fine, wintery comforters.
Blackwater Cask Juniper Gin Prawn Cocktail features plump, juicy prawns but unseasonal cucumber and baby gem lettuce are lacklustre. For dessert, citric Yuzu Cheesecake neither offends nor excites but a Bushby’s Preserved Strawberry Frangipane Tart is an exquisite old school pudding.
Waiting to pay a bill sizeable enough to buy an infinitely superior three-course dinner for two with wine next door in fine dining Greene’s, I properly register the beer taps at the bar: there are pubs in town with a fraction of the funk, a quarter of the cool quotient and yet I’m looking at a draught display from a tied house in a very tired suburb.
There are bottled craft beers in the fridges but it seems a token gesture.
Good food and Irish craft beer have long established a mutual symbiosis in the best gastropubs, forever beyond the purview of industrial brewers, and Cask comes over as a resolutely mainstream bar donning hipster’s clothing; not the result of a single overarching vision but a tentative medley of differing notions uncertain of its target audience.
Still, it’s early days and Cask’s core strengths should see it thrive in what is fundamentally a great venue in an increasingly vibrant part of town.
Chef Bryan McCarthy is a fine cook and will no doubt iron out kinks in the menu while the staff are all obviously intelligent, capable people; it is management’s responsibility to ensure they are properly trained.
But to truly prosper, Cask needs to blaze a trail, not blindly follow others down a well-worn path.
Perhaps, they might begin by serving some genuinely Irish beers on tap?
Sun, 3pm-11pm; Mon-Thurs, 5pm-11.30pm; Fri/Sat, 5pm-12.30am
€134.95 (including two cocktails, €11 each; excluding tip)
Food: 7/10
Service: 6/10
Value: 6.5/10
Atmosphere: 7.5/10
“Fine base materials requiring further alchemy to reach full potential”
021 4500011
www.caskcork.com
