Restaurant review: There's a fine art to a place like The Green Room

The Green Room at the Crawford, Cork. Picture; Denis Minihane.

• The Green Room at the Crawford
• Crawford Art Gallery, Emmet Place, Cork
• Tel. [phone]
• http://www.thegreenroomathecrawford.com
• Opening Hours: Tues/Wed, 9-11.15am, 12pm-14.45pm; Thurs, 9-11.15am, 12pm-14.45pm, 17pm-20.15pm; Fri/Sat, 9-11.15am, 12pm-14.45pm, 17pm-21.15pm

The pandemic may be ‘over’ but its effects, allied to ever-rising operating costs and staffing shortages, are still being felt, and a remorseless and steady stream of hospitality closures sadly continues; granted, many of those venues had been buckling under the other multiple pressure points before the first lockdown but ‘The Covid’ was the barnful of straw that crushed the camel’s vertebrae to fine dust.

So it was with one venerable old stager, the much-adored Crawford Art Gallery Café which closed last summer, a storied restaurant containing the original DNA of modern Irish hospitality as it was first opened by Ballymaloe’s Myrtle Allen, with various sympathetic overseers continuing to propagate her culinary ethos over the course of some 35-plus years.

Its demise triggered a national mourning: though we now live in an ephemeral digital universe where appetites, literal and metaphorical, are dictated by the fleeting whims of social media, anyone truly immersed in Irish food recognised that it remained a vital and relevant Irish restaurant right to the end, chef/restaurateur Sinead Doran, who served under Rory O’Connell in Ballymaloe House for years, the one to finally let slip the reins. In other words, enormously big boots to fill.

Step up, veteran Cork restaurateurs Beth Haughton and Harold Lynch, most recently of Dockland, on Lapp’s Quay.

One requirement of the new operators was that they open for evening service on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, in tandem with the gallery’s desire to extend its own relationship with the local citizenry. The old room itself was always a joy, one of the most elegant in Irish dining; high-ceilinged, airy, light-filled, and usually housing a tasteful selection from the gallery’s art collection. Accordingly, I am very excited at the prospect of seeing the place after dark on a buzzing Saturday night.

DECORUM

I’m in for a shock. It seems the entire Dockland interior’s fittings and fixtures have been decanted into the space and, what worked so well elsewhere, struggles here. Dockland occupied a mundane commercial space in a modern office block but was kitted out with irreverent aplomb: enormous jostling paper globes serving as light shades, bringing fun-filled drama and spectacle to the bland space added to other complementary touches that created a most memorable restaurant. 

But what was fun and funky there, is frivolous here, a host of those paper globes suspended from the ceiling now gobble up this graceful room’s effortless sense of height and space. Large potted palms on raised platforms create ‘sections’, possibly aiming for intimacy but really only further intruding on the room. 

On the walls hang large frameless homogenised photographic prints which might well have been bought by the yard from the interiors section of Woodies, their inclusion frankly baffling considering the artistic alternatives available elsewhere in the gallery. Various other ornamental knick-knacks are busy, needless clutter in a space where less is more.

All in all, it is like gussying up Greta Garbo as (meat-dress era) Lady Gaga to enter X-Factor — in other words, there are certain notions that will never work.

Though not full, the room is tipping away nicely, an older crowd, save for one younger birthday party group, all having fun, always a strength of Haughton’s front-of-house direction.

Mr Clink-Clink, First Born, and I order swiftly, a keen edge to our hunger but though we had arrived nearly bang on time for an 8pm booking, it is almost 35-40 minutes after that before starters arrive. It is hard to fathom the delay as everyone else seems to have mains, even desserts, but we are offered no explanation. 

Neither does a very average and flabby Montepulciano from a dispiriting wine list help to pass the time any faster, and we, great guzzlers all, subsequently consume an entire three courser without quite finishing the bottle — we’d normally have demolished a decent wine in that time spent waiting for food.

UNPRETENTIOUS

The menu is concise, good, mostly Irish produce in a brasserie-style, very much as the duo’s previous restaurant offerings. My croquettes are encased in crisp, deep-fried breadcrumbs, housing molten, rich cheese filling served with pea shoots, precisely the ridiculously flavoursome, sinful excess I need at that very moment. FB has an equally tasty mushroom crostini, supercharged with parmesan and truffle oil, and rocket salad. MCC does least well with sizzling garlic prawns but it is near impossible for frozen, rubbery Asian Tiger prawns to compete with superior North Atlantic cousins from Irish waters.

FB has good steak, medium rare, with pepper sauce, crispy onion rings, and green salad. MCC’s grilled breast of chicken is a tad dry, and tomato fondue, pesto, and chorizo labour to rescue a dish completed by creamy mash.

Again, I am the clear winner: excellent confit duck leg, salty, crispy skin sheathing succulent, juicy meat pulsating with gamey flavour, served with wilted spinach, bacon and thyme stuffing, rustic potatoes, and nice red wine plum sauce. It is quite delicious, but also heightens my pining for something better in the glass. We finish with coffees and desserts: a pleasant if overset zabaglione and good almond and clementine cake.

Haughton and Lynch have never aspired to culinary grandstanding, opting instead to encapsulate an overall restaurant experience, feeding diners tasty, unpretentious food in a warm, welcoming, ever-lively atmosphere; they hit those marks tonight.

Problems are easily rectified. Cork is fast becoming a national hotspot of multiple cracking venues in which to relish good wine, fostering a growing and appreciative audience. With plentiful superb national suppliers, it is no trouble at all to create a superior list that still satisfies hide-bound old traditionalists who only ever drink the same thing, yet also carrying infinitely more interesting wines to appeal to a newer audience delighted to lap them up.

Oh yeah, and less Gaga, more Garbo. There’s rarely a substitute for timeless class.

The Verdict

• Food: 7
• Service: 7
• Value: 8
• Atmosphere: 8 for the vibe; 5 for the space as currently laid out
• Tab: €167, excluding tip