Restaurant review: Dublin's affordable Achara is full of eastern promise

"A smart, modern space, it’s named for the owner of a food stall in Thailand who introduced Achara’s chef and co-owner Graeme Reynolds to the foundations of Thai cooking, it also has a nice pun with the Irish for dear friend."

Sat, 27 Jul, 2024 - 02:00

Leslie Williams

Achara
14-18 Aston Quay, Dublin 2, D02 FV38
AcharaDublin.ie
Open: Mon-Thur, 5-10.30pm; Fri-Sat, 1-10.30pm; Sun, 1-9.30pm
Dinner for two including cocktails, starters, mains, dessert and a carafe of wine cost a reasonable €154

Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s I’m not sure I ever heard mention of Thailand, certainly not in a food context.

These days coconut milk, fish sauces, and jars of green and red curry are on every supermarket shelf.

Thais are immensely proud of their food traditions, their kings issue cookbooks and train chefs, the household gods are given food offerings every day, and wandering monks seeking alms are fed by the community — we could learn a lot from them.

My favourite Thai food tradition is the funeral cookbook, where the deceased arranges for a booklet to be given to each mourner containing their favourite recipes — often prepared years in advance and elaborately decorated.

Achara is our newest Thai restaurant in what was once Happy’s and long before that McBirneys Department store (and the Virgin Megastore).

A smart, modern space, it’s named for the owner of a food stall in Thailand who introduced Achara’s chef and co-owner Graeme Reynolds to the foundations of Thai cooking, it also has a nice pun with the Irish for dear friend.

Reynolds and the guys from Crudo in Sandymount have teamed up to bring the smells and flavours of Thai markets to Ireland with charcoal cooking over a custom Smokin’ Soul grill.

They were barely open a week when I visited with the Editor, a frequent visitor to Thailand.

We immediately noticed that the menu was shorter than the sample on their website, and were told that some ingredients are proving more elusive than expected (eg, Morning Glory ‘water spinach’).

I suspect also that some dishes are being further refined before making an appearance.

We began with cocktails for €13, a fair price in Dublin these days. My kaffir lime margharita was recognisably a margharita but had a distinct Thai and tropical character thanks to the addition of kaffir lime liqueur.

A barbecue rhubarb gimlet with gin and burnt rhubarb is similarly elevated courtesy of vibrant green droplets of Thai basil oil.

Killary Fjord mussel skewers (€4) was the only snack on offer, hopefully they will soon get around to featuring the crispy chicken skins with laap seasoning mentioned on the website.

The mussels were meaty and flavourful tasting of coconut and lemongrass, a shame there were just four of them.

The kitchen was considerably more generous with kale fritters (€8), piled at least eight inches off the plate. A light tempura batter allowed green flavours to poke through the fermented chilli glaze and we greedily ate them all.

Gai jang chicken skewers are a street food classic and these were salty and tasty enough, but we would both have liked a little more flavour and spice. Satay gambas were better, juicy and fat in a deceptively spicy lemongrass scented peanut sauce.

Always order the aubergine, that’s my rule when eating in Indian, Chinese, Japanese, or south east Asian restaurants and as usual it was a wise decision.

Stir-fried with basil and with a chilli glaze the aubergine was punchy and salty while balanced with chilli heat and umami from nam-pla (fish sauce), a total bargain for €14.

Stir fried green beans with chilli and garlic are another must order in a place like Achara, especially when a large portion costs just €7 — crisp, juicy and lively.

Charred courgette salad (€12) was a little blander but worked well enough in concert with the chilli and spice in the other dishes such as the savoury rich pork belly moo hong (€20).

The drinks list is short but well chosen with eight cocktails and around 25 wines with prices starting at €33 and with 50cl carafes also available.

Disappointingly there are no Irish beers or ciders just macro-brewed Cobra and Blue Moon. Some good producers feature including Judith Beck, Von Winning and Domaine Lardy.

Our 50cl carafe of Grüner Veltliner for €25 had peppery citrus freshness and was a good foil for the Thai flavours.

A choice of two desserts at €8 each included mango sticky rice and charred pineapple, both topped with whipped Velvet Cloud sheep’s yoghurt cream.

We both felt the desserts needed some refinement and further injections of flavour — perhaps larger chunks, a more intensely flavoured variety of mango, and maybe doubling down on the pistachio, fennel crumb for the charred pineapple.

It is early days in affordable Achara and the menu will change regularly I’m told, but so far so good. Their big flavours, creativity and charm won us over.

Thailand was never colonised, but I for one welcome their culinary colonisation of our world.

The verdict: