Restaurant Review: Nell’s Wine Bar basks in Cork's historic ambience

"...MacCurtain St kidnapped my childish imagination, holding it close for decades since, never more so than during its ‘lost years’ of the 80s and early 90s, when any last lingering traces of Victorian grandeur crumbled into louche seediness..."

Sat, 22 Jun, 2024 - 02:00

Joe McNamee

Nell’s Wine Bar
39 MacCurtain Street, Cork
Tel. 021 450 1190
Opening Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 4.30pm to 11.30pm
Tab: €120 (excluding tip, other drinks)

It is one of the finest days so far this summer, the increasing rarity of sunshine making it the ‘seasoning’ of choice in Cork on a good day, so we plan an entire evening of al fresco satiation, assembling on the best urban ‘terrace’ in the city, pretty much the entirety of the newly unveiled MacCurtain St, the heart of The VQ.

When my family first moved to Cork, MacCurtain St kidnapped my childish imagination, holding it close for decades since, never more so than during its ‘lost years’ of the 80s and early 90s, when any last lingering traces of Victorian grandeur crumbled into louche seediness, absolute catnip for a teenager who equated decadence with destitution.

The twin draws were music and hospitality, initially, almost entirely music: Crowley’s or Bill Russell’s, to moon over guitars we weren’t allowed to touch, or The Swap Shop to flick through records we’d rarely buy, teenage ticks, barely tolerated and adding little or nothing to the fiscal wellbeing of our hosts.

My first ‘meal’ in MacCurtain St was as a child, in O’Brien’s ice cream parlour, still a glorious, even surreal memory, the ghosts of former King St sitting on high stools alongside. (I had a very fertile ‘imagination’ as a child, otherwise known in Cork as a ‘spacer’.)

Somewhat older, believing porter to be the most important food group, I sustained myself liberally along the grand old thoroughfare, later staunching the wounds with cheap chips, but the arrival of Isaac’s in 1992, then a groundbreaking restaurant for Cork, was the first time I ate ‘proper’ food on the street and the venerable old stager still has some fire in the belly 32 years later.

However, in the Cork of 2024, it has pretty serious company for MacCurtain St is now the epicentre of the city’s hospitality offering with it all manner of fabulous drinking and dining outposts that run the food gamut, from fast all the way up to fine.

We kick off with an aperitif in The Shelbourne, cannily marshalled by Philip Gillivan since he first bought it in 1996, shepherding it through darker days and out the other side, and it is now one of the city’s great pubs and a temple to Irish whiskey.

Just doors down from the former Swap Shop, Johnny Fall Down cider from ‘out the road’ eastwards in Killahora Orchards, bone-dry and chilled, is precisely the libation to quench thirsts and whet appetites.

Across the street in Nell’s, our reserved table is inside. It is a very attractive proposition in winter when this dark, intriguing space that has embraced its old Victorian heritage is a smashing spot in which to hide out over a bottle but today we instead plead for, and receive, a table outside.

There’s profound procrastination and then there is the industrial-scale dithering that sees me only now getting around to reviewing Nell’s Wine Bar despite having previously visited, and for that I am very sorry.

Not least because I never got to say the very nice things in print about former chef Epi Rogan (now at Glass Curtain) that I said repeatedly in private.

Nell’s is owned by Gavin Conaghan, a Scot who knows his way around a glass of wine, and his wife, Áine, tonight covering in the kitchen on foot of a ‘chef crisis’.

As is evident from the list, both are keen fans of natural and low intervention wines. Slovenian Korenika & Moškon Festival White is a most decent summer’s day drinker, ideal with glistening green nocellara olives, the wine’s long lingering finish mopping up the briny aftermath.

From a concise menu designed to marry well with the wines, we have ravioli with mushroom, goat’s cheese and walnuts with brown butter and sage.

Pasta is sound, properly al dente, filling and tasty if slightly overworked, but the overarching theme is the sweet caramel of the butter sauce which near turns the dish into dessert, though not in a bad way.

Hot pork sandwich is a little shy of advertised raclette, so the tender meat is somewhat overwhelmed by the substantial hunk of good ciabatta, even with the aid of sweet chutney; an apple-based jus on the side lacks depth to its flavour, never really taking off.

Beer-battered haddock is best of the lot. Crisp batter, tender flavoursome fish and perky lemon tartare as a counterpoint. Accompanying parmesan and parsley potatoes are excellent, first steamed/boiled to take all the heavy lifting out of subsequent frying, leaving a golden, sweet crust housing a still floury heart.

Nell’s is a lovely experience, tasty food (especial kudos to Áine for the manner in which she stepped into the breach), some pleasing wines all served up in a very becoming venue and we’d still be there if we didn’t have to surrender our table for the next sitting.

Luckily this is MacCurtain St, with bountiful options; we choose one of the best, the very gorgeous MacCurtain Wine Cellar, relishing quite superb vermut, fast becoming a house speciality and a quintessential summer sipper.

Cucumber, mint and elderflower, with Valentia Island Vermouth is delivered as a vibrantly refreshing Hugo, while a Lustau Vermut Rosé, though potent with spice, coriander to the fore, somehow strikes a similar seasonally appropriate tone, equally able for a perfect summer’s evening on MacCurtain St in Cork.

The verdict: