Restaurant review: How L’Atitude 51 converted me to natural wines and became my ‘local’

"...should former comrades still recall my bolshie youth, skulling myriad pints of porter, they would be most astonished indeed to see me now..."

Thu, 29 Jun, 2023 - 08:00

Joe McNamee

L’Atitude 51 Wine Bar
1 Union Quay, Centre, Cork, T12 DY75
Tel. (021) 239 0219
https://latitude51.ie/
Opening Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, (wine shop) 2pm-5pm; (kitchen opens) 5pm-10.30pm

The essence and missionary endeavour of proprietor Beverley Mathews’ L’Atitude 51 were apparent from first opening in 2011, a commitment to demystifying and serving up good wine without pretension.

It did that very well from the off, with an always intriguing wine list, bolstered by education: accessible, informative yet thoroughly entertaining wine classes and tasting nights to nurture a homegrown audience.

Food, excellently sourced, was never less than good but knew its place, menus largely built around antipasti favourites requiring little further attention, compatible wine companions including cheeses, charcuterie, olives and nuts, and a few straightforward hot dishes.

A few years after opening, Mathews began to showcase her burgeoning interest in natural wines. My last review, in 2016 makes casual mention of one, Trebbiolo Rosso La Stoppa 2014, an afterthought bottle, something “fun and funky” at the end of the night.

It was in fact back then a pathfinder to L51’s future, now the present, where it is the best natural wine bar in the country, sporting a list on a par with some of the best in Europe — if only I’d had the knowledge, awareness and foresight at the time to divine it as such but, then again, the evolution in the intervening years since has been nothing short of stunning.

Back then, to champion natural wine was to very much row against the tastes of the conventional wine establishment. Many scoffed — and still do — at ‘natural wine’, and to make such a body swerve in Cork was brave indeed for the city can be, when it comes to epicurean adventure, by turns, deeply radical and stultifyingly conservative.

But Mathews patiently brought her clientele along on her own journey, educating and informing, including some wild nights with visiting vignerons, legends of the natural wine world.

But, as the wine offering grew ever more exciting, the edible offering lagged behind. There was always an admirable commitment to serving premium local, seasonal produce but menus increasingly struggled to keep pace with the vaulting ambition that was to be found in the glass. And then Mathews met Simone Kelly.

Kelly may not be a face or a fixture on social media but she is a seasoned operator and a gifted cook with a preternatural ability to exact maximum flavour with minimum fuss.

Now installed as ‘culinary director’, working with Basque chef Xuban Noriega, food has been utterly transformed, small plates and sharing boards, including daily specials, as breathtakingly good as they are sublimely simple, drilling no further into superb produce than is necessary to tap into the quintessential essence of each ingredient.

A cluster of Foleys and I assemble at our favourite spot, the butcher’s block at the end of the bar, evening June sun streaming through the windows, warming our backs.

First a thirst-quenching ‘soif’ of Mark Jenkinson’s wonderful Irish Cockagee keeved cider, followed by a peppy glass of Judith Beck Pet-Nat Bambule 21, biscuity on the nose, strawberries and cream on the palate. A parade of small plates for sharing begins to arrive.

Crisp-fried golden potato croquettes house haddock and cod, a delicious comforter married to astringent emulsion of wild garlic aioli, and we then drape gossamer thin slices of tender pink spiced beef tongue drizzled in salsa verde over Ben Le Bon’s craggy, crusty, sourdough.

Sally Barnes hot-smoked tuna niçoise is on a larger plate, a very Irish take on the classic Nice dish. It comprises fine organic Kilbrack salad leaves, and charred gem lettuce and green beans. A soft boiled egg is quartered, viscous, yellow yolk, indolent and oozing. A waxy spud is fried, as is tomato until its sugars carmelise and brown.

Black olive tapenade adds rich, salty punch and, crowning all, superb Woodcock smokery fish, most fine when ‘sauced’ with yolk. We wash it down with bright Jura ‘Pino Nwar’ (pinot noir) from Vincent & Marie Tricot, gentle fruit and spicy, crisp minerality.

Yvon Metras is one of the natural wine legends of Beaujolais, the storied modern birthplace of natural wine, and Madame Placard 2020 is a majestic 100% gamay, sprightly, soft red fruits shimmering silkily on the palate.

You could glug this down all day yet there is also backbone and crisp clarity ensuring it works splendidly with food. It gees up fried sweetbreads with pea and mint puree — which I admittedly enhance with more wild garlic aioli — and coaxes out the sweet spot of a well made pork terrine with all the hypnotic command of a snake charmer.

A simple salad of those Kilbrack leaves succeeds on quality of greens wearing a nicely judged vinaigrette, refreshing the palate before ‘dessert’, Macroom buffalo mozzarella with strawberries and mint, a cracking combo that would have been better still if mozzarella, tightening a tad in the ‘autumn’ of its very short life span, had more of the creaminess of youth.

Buffalo mozzarella with strawberries at L'Atitude 51

Another wine, another legendary vigneron, René-Jean Dard and his partner, François Ribo and their C’est le Printemps 2022 Croze-Hermitage, intense ruby red, but fresh, fruity, spicy and vital in the mouth.

We have it with a great little cheeseboard and then as a digestif out on the riverside terrace that is positively Mediterranean on summer nights such as this, especially after a near perfect evening of camaraderie, wining and dining.

If you have only ever drunk conventional wine then the transition to natural takes time but gradually as you come to savour the life and energy in the glass, it becomes harder and harder to go back. Though I’ve enjoyed wine for over four decades, it is only over the course of the last one that my appreciation has ascended to an entirely more exalted level, an exuberantly joyous engagement in response to the exuberance and joy of the very best natural wines.

I owe the lion’s share of my Damascene conversion to L51, to Mathews and her now quite brilliant team — in the kitchen, behind the bar and on the floor — and should former comrades still recall my bolshie youth, skulling myriad pints of porter, they would be most astonished indeed to see me now, for while I will always have time for a good ‘pint of plain’, my beloved ‘local’ is now L’Atitude 51, an actual wine bar— ’tis far from such things we were reared!

The Verdict