Restaurant Review: A perfect gem of a fish-focused restaurant
So I'm dying, just dying of a cold this week. I’ve been lying in bed milking as much as I can out of it for sympathy, as you might expect, but duty called and I had to get a restaurant review in.
I couldn’t cope with fancy or complicated so fish and chips it had to be, quite possibly my favourite food in the world.
Fish Shop used to have two Fish Shop outlets, a perfect gem of a restaurant with a fish-focused tasting menu and a top notch wine list and a more casual sister Fish & Chips restaurant nearby.
Proprietors Peter and Jamoke closed the Queen St restaurant before Christmas which was sad news for Dublin but great news for Peter’s home town of Tramore as they are due to open in a bigger space there in mid-March.
Fish Shop Benburb St is very casual with counter seating only and operates as a takeaway for lucky nearby residents, but it also has proper Riedel wine glasses and a fine selection of wines including lots of dry sherry, the perfect match for fish and chips.
We began with salted almonds and properly juicy, fleshy, Nocellara Olives (€3.50), another perfect match for dry sherry.
Myself and my guest both adore the salty, yeasty intensity to be found in Fino and Manzanilla but we were both disappointed with our glasses of De La Riva Manzanilla Fina (€7.50) as it seemed rather bloodless and insipid.
Our host explained that De La Riva is part of a new wave of Sherry producers bringing more wine flavours to his Manzanilla to express terroir and grape variety by releasing the wines younger (three years rather than the usual five).
If this move creates more sherry drinkers I’m all for it, but I can’t see such a mish-mash style pleasing either wine or sherry lovers.
We demurred on the offer of replacement glasses but asked for our next to be the more traditional Callejuela Pasada Blanquito Manzanilla which is aged for at least 10 years in barrel.
This was the polar opposite — bristling preserved lemon aromas and yeasty, nutty intensity, perfect for coping with salty fish and chips and easily able to penetrate my virus-blocked senses.
Six fairly priced fine quality Connemara Oysters (€15) were served with lemon slices and a ramekin of Mignonette sauce and once again Manzanilla’s adaptability with seafood shone through.
Smoked Haddock Croquettes (€5.50) were creamy and rich with lightly smoked fish encased in a golden crumb and sitting on some lightly pungent wholegrain mustard mayonnaise — dangerously good.
We wisely ordered two Squid Sliders (€5.50) — 3in-high mini-hamburger buns filled with crisp-fried squid rings and a dollop of fresh mayonnaise.
The squid were squeaky fresh and tender and the mayonnaise and light bun added good heft and broadened out the flavours.
For the star of the show, fish and chips, we had a choice between haddock and hake at €15, brill at €19 and John Dory at €20 or a fish burger at €15.
On another night we might have played it safe and gone for hake or haddock but we were so glad we went for brill and John Dory.
The Fish Shop batter is feather-light and supremely crispy and served only to enhance the light but firm flesh of the John Dory and add depth to the more delicate brill.
We tried pieces of each and were in dispute as to which worked best but I reckon the extra firmness of the dory won out.
Chips are old fashioned chipper chips which is as it should be, and while I ate them all up, I would love if they could coax a bit more crispiness from them — the only culinary niggle in the meal.
There was just one dessert of Lemon posset with shortbread and as my appetite was fading a little, I ate just a spoonful of the bitter sweet, almost luscious posset that managed to both refresh my palate and please the child in me that still craves sweet things after a meal.
So lucky Tramore that is getting the talents of Peter and Jumoke, and huge thanks to them for keeping this joyous outpost in Dublin.
The tab
Dinner for two including a glass of aperitif port, six glasses of Manzanilla sherry, several snacks, two mains, and a shared dessert.
Monday: 5pm to 9.30pm (closed bank holidays); Tuesday and Wednesday, 12pm to 9.30pm; Thursday to Saturday, 12pm to 10pm; Sunday: 12pm to 9pm
9/10
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9/10
A casual but very high quality fish and chips restaurant with a great wine list that delivers much more than it promises.
