Restaurant review: Brunch offering is bang on trend at Léa’s at The Glucksman
Léa’s at The Glucksman
These are brutal times for hospitality and even the finest pastry chef in the land would be hard-pressed to sugarcoat that bitter reality.
Currently, it is hard to tell whether much of the sector is taking refuge in the safe harbour of a ‘brunch menu’ or is it simply responding to a voracious dining public seeking comfort in more familiar fare, a public also mindful of a lower price point than nocturnal dining which inevitably includes a lot more pricey alcohol than the occasional glass of bubbles in evidence in today’s absolutely hopping room — Léa’s is just one of three new serious brunch openings in the city in recent times, along with Paperboys and Proby’s Kitchen.
Léa’s have been pulling in massive numbers since partners Joe Dowling, Cyprien Jouve, and Colm Liston opened with a brunch formula already patented in their successful Joe’s & Bros venue nearby on College Road.
It is set in the basement of UCC’s magnificent Glucksman gallery, an elongated modernist rectangular box, primal brutalism of concrete leavened by the bucolic charm of the college’s renowned ‘Quarry’.
Viewed through floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of the room, it is especially compelling on a bleak, clear winter’s morn as a game sun draws an ethereal fog barely above the ground and the south channel of the River Lee that flows alongside.
If there is a dish that semaphores brunch, it is avocado on toast, or ‘smashed avo on sourdough’, the often controversial creation of recently deceased Australian chef-restaurateur Bill Granger, and it is regularly held responsible for, amongst other things: the collapse of sustainable indigenous agriculture in Mexico; the plague of pesky millennials; the overall destruction of humanity as we know it; and whatever else irks cranky old boomers.
All, of course, ‘guacamole off La Daughter’s taco’ who is still, thankfully, blissfully ensconced in youthful innocence/ignorance. A young lady of singular tastes, she simply likes avocado.
She also likes Pana sourdough toast. She especially likes the former smeared all over the latter. She loves tomatoes but is suspicious of the need to roast cherry tomatoes, which she only eats as fresh fruit; chilli crunch oil and sriracha, leaving her merely bemused, are left untouched.
I evaluate the dish in its entirety; the wheel has received no further invention but it is perfectly palatable and pleasant.
The menu (breakfast, brunch, and lunch) offers a decent selection. Along with the ‘smashed avo’, it ranges from traditional (ham hock Benedict; ’shrooms on toast) to whatever is currently most ’Grammable wherever brunch is served (eg, north African egg dish, shakshuka).
LD also orders Maple French toast, pillowy Pana brioche with crispy bacon and fine, authentic, smokey syrup.
Veganuary’s flexitarianism takes a carnivorous turn, a Rosscarbery breakfast bap: toasted sesame brioche bun sandwiches excellent Rosscarbery black pudding, streaky bacon, sausage, fried egg all daubed with goujujang BBQ glaze.
We devour it rapidly, eyes glazing over, drugged by the sweet opiate of comfort food at its finest.
The lunch menu offers chimichurri steak, smash burger and Korean fried chicken, all on trend, but I’ve had sufficient meat and I’ve always found worthy but boring Buddha bowls akin to a self-assembly edible stations of the cross, so opt for the other vegetarian dish, The Fritter Smuggler, hankering for something fried and crispy.
However, ‘fritter’ is actually closer to more pliable ‘frittata’, grated spiced veg mixed with egg and pan-fried.
Thin half moons of fried sweet potato appear limp and unappealing, but carmelised sugars mean they are even more flavoursome than the tasty fritters. It is served with beetroot borani, house pickles, hummus, grated carrot and leaves, more atonement for my sins of Yuletide excess — a portion of fine skinny fries softens the blow, further hardens the arteries.
After very good coffee, we gaze out the window as I just manage to prevent myself from launching into a reminiscence to LD of how I first learned to smoke cigarettes in the same Quarry as a pre-teen schoolboy — different times.
Léa’s is not only a terrific addition to one of the most fabulous buildings in the country but also to the city at large and while Dowling and partners currently hug safer shores of brunch-style dining while storms rage elsewhere, it is born out of a canniness that knows any hospitality craft that puts to sea in these turbulent times needs to have the fundamentals totally shipshape.
There are future and enticing plans for more adventurous nocturnal outings but in the meantime, whenever I need to ‘do brunch’ or even tease out an afternoon coffee, Léa’s is very much my idea of ‘going back to college’.
The Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork
021 4901844
7 days a week, serving hot food 10am-3pm; drinks, cakes, etc, until 4pm.
7.5
7
8
8.5
€62pp (incl tip, including freshly squeezed orange juices, coffees)
