Restaurant review: Top quality and wondrous flavours at Volpe Nera
Volpe Nera, Blackrock, Co Dublin
- Volpe Nera
- 22 Newtown Park, Newtown Park Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.Â
- Tel: 01-2788516
- volpenera.ie - @volpeneradublin
Do you remember ‘Fusion Cooking’? Probably not, it was only in fashion for a brief time in the 1990s in California when celebrity chefs such as Wolfgang Puck mixed Asian and European flavours. I remember eating in Oritalia in San Francisco in 1996 at its height and the mix of flavours blew my mind a little — Sichuan pepper and soy flavours on the Florentine Steak slices, if I remember correctly.
Fusion cooking could be clumsy of course, but sometimes it was sublime and the best bits (e.g. soy sauce on tuna tartare) were incorporated into the culinary mainstream in the same way that the best ideas from Nouvelle Cuisine linger on (lighter sauces, beautiful plating etc).
Now to be clear, Volpe Nera is not fusion cooking, it is very much Mediterranean as you would expect from the former head chef of Etto. However, chef Barry Sun Jian was born in the Liaoning region of North Eastern China so if anyone could artfully drop in a few subtle Asian flavours it would be him.
Hence Volpe Nera’s rather wondrous ‘Mushroom Dumplings in aged Soya with Fennel and Lovage’ - silky creamy almost liquid mushroom mousseline in a light delicate dumpling in a soy influenced broth with background herbal notes from the fennel and lovage. What I loved about the dish is that it reminded me as much of an Asian dumpling broth (typical of Liaoning Province I’m told), but also Tortellini al Brodo as you would find in Bologna.
I chose Volpe Nera as my first post-lockdown review for a few reasons. I wanted light zingy fresh flavours suitable to the warm June weather but, more importantly, I had been planning on visiting since it opened in the closing months of 2019. The restaurant has just a couple of outdoor seats but the pub next door has kindly allowed them to use their frontage which allowed for 20 or so comfortably spaced seats. The restaurant is a 15-minute walk from Blackrock Dart Station.
We began with aperitivo drinks to whet our appetites — my guest opting for a nutty and complex Amontillado Sherry from the fine house of Fernando de Castilla while I had a bittersweet Vermouth & Soda from the same house.
Pro tip: sherry houses make some of the very best Vermouth.
I also ordered a ‘Quinta Milu’ Ribera del Duero from the well thought out and varied wine list — its pungent ripe blackberry fruits worked perfectly with everything we ordered.
As it had been so long I wanted the whole menu and it took considerable restraint not to order the Flaggy Shore Oysters and the Smoked Almonds and Nocellara Olives — as it was we greedily ordered three ‘bites’ and two starters and I don’t regret any of them.
Treacle brown bread was nutty and complex while the sourdough was simply wonderful — crusty, fluffy and light, while some creamy cep butter added depth and umami. Wafer-thin slices of Guanciale melted in the mouth while two golf ball-sized salted Hake Croquettes were meaty and rich with a little kick of preserved lemon to add complexity.
The mushroom dumpling starter (€11) mentioned above was a highlight of the meal but my guest’s starter was also outstanding — Pig Trotter in thin ‘carpaccio’ slices with some crispy breaded sticks of pork, and solid contrast from kohlrabi salad, violet mustard and quails egg.
Côte de Boeuf (€68 for two) was served medium rare and was a perfect cut of beef, meaty and rich, while on the side a Cucumber & Endive salad added crispy fresh and bitter contrasts and the more-ish cubes of beef-dripping hash potatoes also deserve mention.
Because I was greedy I added a half portion of satiny delicate Spelt Gnocchi with Chanterelle mushrooms with a ‘crispy egg’ which had been breaded and fried whole but retained a comforting liquid centre.
Desserts cost a very reasonable €7 — a soft light Basil Panna Cotta had lovely spiky anise flavours that contrasted nicely with a sweet Smoked Strawberry Consommé. Pineapple Sponge was a richer style of sponge with caramelised pineapple on top — by now we were struggling.
The meal cost a very fair €188 — which sounds like a lot but we stuffed ourselves silly so was a very fair price for the quality of all we ate. Barry Sun is building on his work at Etto and elsewhere nicely — a wonderful start to the 2021 dining season.
