Restaurant review: With a few tweaks The Old Bank could be Michelin-starred in a few years
The Old Bank was the talk of the town even before it opened as local man Michael Ryan, erstwhile property developer and stud farm millionaire, opened his war chest for an extensive makeover of the handsome Bridge House — a 19th-century Palladian edifice that casts a patrician eye on the Dungarvan’s delightful harbour.
On launch day, in October 2019, all and sundry agreed the restoration was of the highest order, no expense spared in creating stylish, salubrious interior spaces while respecting entirely the heritage building’s historical and architectural integrity. The superbly equipped kitchen is one of the best in the country and the restaurant’s Al Eile Farm, a few miles out the road, provides fresh produce.
The gloriously high-ceilinged ground floor includes a swish cocktail bar and terrace and a deceptively elegant bistro. Upstairs is a private dining room and, the nicest room in the house — a long fine dining restaurant space; to the rear, a vast courtyard.
Within months of opening, The Covid arrived, tearing asunder best-laid plans. The courtyard became a giant drinking den under canvas, serving a paired-down menu, and indoors remained in darkness for much of the next two years, original concept buried while things were kept ticking over. Opening chef, Tom Walsh, eventually left last year. His replacement, David Larkin, was a leftfield choice, a decade away from the culinary limelight.
Larkin is one of those rare chefs who shuns attention, virtual or real, but he spent many years as sous chef to the legendary Michael Quinn, back when Quinn ran one of the best kitchens in the country, at Waterford Castle. After the pair quit in 2012, Larkin kept a low profile, starting a family, happy to catch his breath working low-key jobs. Now returned and in the lead role, he is understudy no more.
Larkin’s opening is extraordinarily good. A bowl arrives bearing delicately pickled silky beech mushrooms and an onion ‘fudge’ with the sweet fatty textures of foie gras. They are dressed with nasturtium, pea shoot and red-veined sorrel; smoked potato soup is poured over. Actually, ‘soup’ is a paltry descriptor for this sublimely balanced viscous velvet concoction, flush with deep flavour, including wonderfully restrained, almost ethereal smokiness. The ‘fudge’ adds grainy sweetness, mushroom’s tart tingle and a spritz of cleansing Jerusalem artichoke juice cut through creamy riches.
Culinarily speaking, scallops might be described as demure, placid, ever willing to support punchier partners, even as the star turn. Certainly, house ponzu and dashi in scallop roe stock bring potent umami but it underpins rather than overpowers marine notes of creamy scallop. Blowtorched segments of blood orange are giddily citric and snappy chlorophyll of black kale, red-vein sorrel and crunchy pea shoots complete one of the best scallop dishes I’ve ever enjoyed: if this were tennis, think of it as the effortless insouciance of cheeky and match-winning near-net lob as opposed to the bruising raw power of forehand smash.
Oxtail and Onion sees sweet, savoury carmelised onion set as a wobbly, glistening ‘fondant’ that, gently probed, spills forth plush, lush ragu of slow-braised oxtail. Served with a café au lait sauce, it is deliciously satisfying.
Slow-braised pig’s ear features cauliflower velouté, apples reduced in red wine and fresh-grated horseradish but anaemic flavour of intensive-farmed pork is inescapably callow; substitute genuine free-range and we’d have another triumph.
Monkfish is on a duxelle of wild mushrooms, with beurre noisette and outrageously good celeriac puree. Cod comes with cauliflower puree, toothsome haricot blanc beans, smoked Morteau sausage and black kale. Both dishes feature fine fish, precisely cooked, accompaniments all consummately delivered.
Buttermilk mousse, with blood orange, chocolate and rhubarb, easily trumps The Old Bank Ferrero, a monster chocolate and hazelnut bombe; though smartly achieved, way too hefty to close our meal.
There are flaws. The current wine list is counterintuitively ‘idiosyncratic’ (prices in random order; illogical groupings) and advice is unhelpful; respite, in the form of excellent Cotes du Rhone, Les Deux Cols Alizé 2020, is our own selection. The biggest crime of all is the gorgeous and elegant upstairs room lying idle.
It is pleasing to hear at evening’s end of plans to rectify all these issues and more. The casual dining bistro downstairs is a beautiful bright space but Larkin’s exceptional, masterful cooking deserves the finest stage available, to ascend upstairs to a ‘higher level,’ literally and figuratively— make that happen and TOB could well have all the makings of a Michelin-starred restaurant in the next few years.
Food: 9
Service: 8
Value: 8.5
Atmosphere: 8
Tab: €245 (Including wines and cocktails, excluding tip)
- Davitt’s Quay, Dungarvan, Co Waterford
- Tel. 058 48199
- theoldbankdungarvan.ie
- Opening Hours: Wed/Thurs, Lunch, 12-2.30pm, Dinner, 5.30-8pm; Fri/Sat, Lunch, 12-2.30pm, Dinner, 5.30-9pm; Sunday, Roast Lunch, 12.30-3.30pm, Dinner, 5.30-8pm
