Restaurant Review: Monkstown's Bresson is an early-bird miracle
Bresson Restaurant, Monkstown Cres, Dublin. Photograph Moya Nolan
- Bresson Restaurant
- 4a Monkstown Crescent, Monkstown, Co Dublin A94 VK30
- bresson.ie
- Dinner: Tuesday to Sunday, 5 - 9.30pm; Lunch: Thursday to Sunday, 12 - 2.45pm; Early Bird: Thursday to Sunday, 5 - 6pm
- The Tab: Early bird dinner for four people with three courses each and two bottles of wine cost €274.80 (€69 per person)
The above quote is from an email Chef Garner sent me and it sums up Bresson nicely.
Garner first came to my attention in the Mermaid Café on Dame St and then in Town Bar and Grill — both were fun, vibrant restaurants serving food packed with flavour and creative flair.
His next venture was San Lorenzo on George’s Street (now Kicky’s), a sort of New York Italian restaurant, offering bold flavours and great vibes.
In 2018 Garner opened Bresson where he went back to his roots with French cooking: “I’ve been a French cook all along, just in disguise to myself,” he says.
In late March this year, myself and the Engineer spent four days in Paris, our first visit since 2019 and found ourselves eating mostly bistro food (as well as visiting some natural wine bars).
We returned to our favourite bistro ‘Le Gavroche’ in the Sentier for pâté en croute and possibly the best steak-frites in Paris washed down with their house Beaujolais — it was heaven and we missed it, so Bresson beckoned.
Finding good French bistro food in Dublin is not as easy as you might think and there is something comforting about seeing dishes like Boeuf Bourguignon, Duck à l’Orange, and Moules Marinière on a menu.
We visited with our neighbours who are fine cooks themselves and opted for the Early Bird menu as it is a total bargain — served Thursday to Sunday at just €44.95 for three courses, and €39.95 for two.
This being a French restaurant the bread arrived gratis — slices of cinnamon and clove scented pain-d’épices, a crusty textured sourdough loaf, and of course some creamy Beurre-d’Isigny Sainte-Mère AOP butter on the side.
A demi-tasse of sweet-earthy root vegetable soup was also served as an amuse-bouche.
Unlike many early bird menus, Bresson offers lots of choice with five starters and seven main courses and almost everything on it is a French classic.
My parfait of duck liver and foie gras with toasted brioche and prune and pain d’épices crumb was as perfect a parfait as I can remember tasting, incredibly light in texture as though spun from silk with a pleasing fruity-offal pungency.
Roquefort with red wine poached pears, endive and truffled honey was also beautifully conceived with vibrant flavours sparring off each other to create new sensations, designed to wake up the palate in the way a starter course should.
Smoked salmon and salmon pâté was also delicate but characterful and the surprising winner might have been the humble ham hock and butter bean soup — meaty and complex, salty but light — designed to pierce to the soul and the deep-rooted memory of every Irish person.
We all wanted the Coquille St Jacques — scallops gratinated in the shell with a brown shrimp and smoked haddock chaudrée (chowder) and impossibly fluffy duchess potato and gruyère cheese.
It was as perfect as it sounds, the small forkful I persuaded from the Engineer filled all my senses.
Steak and kidney pie was as pretty as can be with light flaky pastry and a rich meaty stew underneath, sea bass Veronique came with a vibrant poached golden raisin beurre blanc and my Feighcullen free-range chicken breast ballotine was tender but with a punchy stuffing of Bayonne ham and pork with perfect duck fat roasties.
Bresson’s wine list is large with prices starting at €38 and a nice selection by the glass and a good collection of fine wines including Ch Tertre Roteboeuf Saint-Émilion 2010 for €550 if you are feeling flush.
As the sun was shining for a change we began with Domaine Peiriere Grenache Rosé (€40) which had lively floral red fruit aromas and a pleasing cherry-skin tang.
For our main courses, we opted for Joseph Drouhin Coteaux Bourguignons, a Pinot Noir-Gamay blend with bright juicy red and black fruits that was a light enough match for the fish and rich enough for the steak and kidney.
Dessert highlights included a rich dark chocolate mousse, a (properly) sticky toffee pudding and an intense salted caramel ice cream.
Forget what you may have heard: French cooking is not dead, it is in fact alive and well and living in Monkstown.
- Food: 9/10
- Drink: 9/10
- Service: 9/10
- Ambience: 9/10
- Value: 9/10
