Restaurant review: Paladar is Cork's new Latin-inspired party palace — and bar of the year

"...it has just been freshly crowned Bar of the Year at the 2023 Irish Bar of the Year awards in Dublin, last week — it most certainly won’t be Paladar’s last award..."

Sun, 27 Aug, 2023 - 13:10

Joe McNamee

Paladar
6 Bridge Street, Cork
Tel: 021 2290045
paladar.ie
Opening hours: Mon to Thu: 5pm - 11.30pm; Fri: 4pm - 1.30am; Sat: 3pm - 12.30am; Sun: 5pm - 11pm (last food orders at 10pm)
Tab: €155 (including cocktails, wine, excluding tip)

E and I have a rescheduled meeting, a postponed working lunch from earlier in the week which has now become a Saturday dinner date, on one of those sunny evenings that became so rare and precious after summer’s initial UV splurge in June.

Who'd a thunk it, but an al fresco pint of fine porter outside The Bierhaus, on Pope’s Quay, on a balmy evening makes for a surprisingly efficacious conference room, and notebooks and laptop are long back in the holsters by the time we amble up the quays towards Patrick’s Bridge where Paladar is to be found “next door” on Bridge St.

A paladar is a type of small, family-run restaurant which is to be found in Cuba but this Leeside Paladar could well translate as “party” because, even before we pass through its doors, a booming playlist is spilling a joyous racket around the entire street.

I managed to snaffle a sneak preview of Paladar late last year just days before it opened and, without ever returning, I speculated in print just a month or two later, in New Year’s roundup of predictions for the epicurean year ahead, that 2023 would prove a big one for Paladar, ever before a drop or a morsel crossed my lips.

It has just been freshly crowned Bar of the Year at the 2023 Irish Bar of the Year awards in Dublin, last week — it most certainly won’t be Paladar’s last award.

I based my prediction on two things: First, co-proprietor Andy Ferreira’s track record as one of Ireland’s finest mixologists and cocktail creators, on display in recent years in the award-winning Cask, which he has managed since it first opened just around the corner on MacCurtain St in 2017, turning it into one of Ireland’s best cocktail bars, and sporting a global reputation; the second reason was the sublime renovation of a bar I have frequented in its various guises over decades, reimagined and reinvented, even to the rear of the long, narrow premises where Stygian darkness was formerly as bright as it got.

Light now floods in through rediscovered windows to the rear, illuminating walls stripped back to bare brick; floating overhead are hanging planters lush with living greenery supplied by Brian McCarthy, of Cork Rooftop Farm.

Reclaimed scaffolding boards form shelving and an elaborate marble-topped bar is a splendid feature in its own right.

Ornate handcrafted glass and cast-iron lamps are suspended from the ceiling, blessing the space in orange and amber hues that complement the sun’s own parting shot still filtering through the large front window.

If a gang of gauchos strolled in off the Pampas, in tow with a sizzling sauce boat of samba dancers, you’d hardly bat an eyelid and we head straight for the cracking cocktail menu, dispensing with the classics to try a few from the “rotational” house menu as we ponder the edible options.

Nibbling very more-ish nuts — Brazil, cashews, and peanuts, toasted and tossed in sweet garlic oil — and very much sticking to a south-of-the-border theme, we especially relish a Castillo Nuevo (Caravedo Pisco, Pipian distillate, Bushby’s Strawberries) and a Mo’Lay (Del Maguey Chichicapa Mescal, Olmeca Altos Tequila, Mole distillate, Palo Cortado sherry).

Bocados de quinoa are traditional Bolivian croquettes of cheese and quinoa, breaded and deep-fried to a crisp exterior and liberally doused in cracking hot sauce aioli, made with fermented hot sauce from Cork’s own Terra Ignis, currently based in the English Market.

Next is an even more delicious deep-fried empanada, a traditional Spanish/Latino snack food, this particular derivation is inspired by the street food of Sao Paulo and it is hardly surprising that Brazilian head chef Nascimento Nunes knocks delivery of his hometown staple clean out of the park, buttery, crisp pastry filled with cheese, sweetcorn, and oregano and served with white cabbage and tomato salsa and jalapeño aioli.

Tostado de Camarones is a crispy tortilla bearing succulent marinated prawns, with guacamole, pickled red onion, grilled baby gem, and spiced mango salsa, great flavours playing lightly off each other, and we both fall completely for tacos de carne, the shredded meat from braised beef short ribs, in a soft corn tortilla with celeriac remoulade, horseradish, and coriander.

Our delightful server sells us on the notion of ordering cerdo con frijoles negro, slow-cooked pork belly, with smashed black beans, farofa, and cabbage.

That it doesn’t quite work has nothing to do with the kitchen’s game efforts — earthy black beans are excellent as is the very fine farofa, making up for a recent and poor experience elsewhere in the city of this crunchy, flavoursome condiment of roasted cassava — and everything to do with the inferior quality of industrially raised pork, the same pork you’ll find in 99.9% of Irish restaurant kitchens.

While it takes a fraction of the effort to draw forth infinitely superior flavours of genuinely free-range pork, it takes infinitely more effort to persuade Irish punters, addicted to the lower prices of cheap, industrial meat to fork out for the substantial difference in price so it is rare indeed to see the real deal on an Irish menu.

Cocktail master Cristobal at work in Paladar, Cork. Picture: Miki Barlok

All wine options are from Latin America and we have a pleasant if forgettable Argentinian Malbec (Altos Los Hermigos 2020) that is only trotting after the far superior cocktails — to which we return.

Because I’m a pro, I insist we try and find space for dessert; as in, I will order and E will do the bulk of the eating.

Dulce de leche flan is another Hispanic/Latino classic, and this one is quite outrageous, an impossibly sweet confection that is near impossible to stop scoffing, served with admittedly rather redundant strawberries, basil, and cashews, a sideshow to the criminally addictive saccharin star.

Service finished, Paladar completes its nocturnal transmogrification into a full-blown cocktail bar/mini-nightclub as we head off out the door, being too full to samba and not gifted with the necessary sign language skills to make ourselves understood above a party playlist that follows us halfway down the quays — Paladar may not be the ideal venue for intimate hushed silences and softly whispered sweet nothings, let alone any kind of work meeting, but it is near perfection when it comes to kicking out the jams with a full-blown Latin-American Mardi Gras party and, man, do I like to party!

The Verdict