Restaurant review: Orwell Road is in safe hands with its impressive chef
Orwell Road: The room is relatively small but feels modern and open with clean lines and good light
8.5/10
God bless diversity. Demographics in Ireland have shifted noticeably in the last 25 years and I don’t think it is a coincidence that in this same period, our food and restaurant culture has broadened, deepened, and become noticeably more vibrant.
Many of our most lauded chefs were not born here and most of our best restaurants have a large number of non-Irish born staff at front of house and in the kitchen. This is also true of restaurants that focus on Irish ingredients and traditions. Chefs that have made their homes here have fully embraced our ingredients — while also bringing a little flair from home.
To give an example, I loved the Ireland-focused food in Margadh at the RHA Gallery, yet the Brazilian-influenced dulce de leche mille-feuille pastry felt right at home; my mother also loved condensed milk.
That Brazilian touch came from chef Leticia Miranda, who I also reviewed favourably when she was at the helm in Coppinger restaurant. So when I heard she had taken over the Bereen Brothers flagship restaurant, Orwell Road, I had to visit to see what she had created.
Orwell Road calls itself a “casual neighbourhood restaurant” using “as many local Irish ingredients as we can get our hands on”. I reviewed it favourably when it opened in 2022 under Dan Hannigan (now gone to Angelina’s).
The room is relatively small but feels modern and open with clean lines and good light from the large windows facing onto busy Orwell Rd.
There are two menus, the set neighbourhood menus with a choice of two or three courses (€32/€39) with optional snacks, or the à la carte dinner menu which includes sharing plates of roast chicken (€38) and côte de boeuf (€75). At the weekend, there is a value weekend lunch menu and a ‘Sunday steak night’ menu for €110, which includes a bottle of red wine.
The physicist and the engineer ordered cocktails, a ‘summertime sour’ and a ‘spicy blood orange margarita’ — both were fruity, balanced, refreshing, and worth their €14 each.
Heirloom tomato salad with crispy tapioca and pickled onion sounds simple, but thanks to a punchy dressing, sweet tomatoes, fine quality leaves (including mizuna), and the excellent idea of adding tapioca croutons for extra texture, it was easily one of the best salads I’ve had all year.
Scallops and chicken skin was on the first Orwell Road menu and deserves to stay there, as the contrasting umami flavours from the caramelised scallop and the chicken skin complement each other perfectly. Leticia has tweaked it by adding a welcome cauliflower and coconut purée to add earthy sweetness. It works.
Of the three mains, the beef ragú with orzo lingers longest in my memory — the rich sweet beef melted in the mouth, the pasta added texture, and crisp-fried cavolo nero some off-setting bitter notes. Cod was correctly cooked with a crisp top and soft interior, with tenderstem broccoli and mussels on the side.
The best part of the dish was perhaps the complex dashi velouté — which added an almost meaty, subtly saline, umami intensity.
Gnocchi were perhaps a little doughy but they were nicely offset by juicy king oyster mushrooms and sweet peas, with grated Cáis na Tíre cheese on top to add extra tangs of flavour. We really didn’t need the side of crispy Ballymakenny spuds (€6) but, as always, they were a welcome addition.
Orwell Road’s wine list is pleasingly diverse with just a smattering of classic wines nestling among more diverse offerings from Slovakia, Sicily, Portugal, and elsewhere. I chose a bottle of Château Ksara Blanc de Blanc from Lebanon, a blend of Sémillon, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon.
Its creamy vanilla and melon notes were cut through with apple acidity from the sauvignon, and the wine’s textures and flavours made it a solid match for the wide range of flavours on our plates. It’s a wine that deserves to be better known.
We shared the two desserts available and both impressed, the 70% chocolate mousse with chocolate crumb perhaps shading it.
I loved the richness of the almost smoky dark chocolate flavours and how these were offset by sweet crunchy chocolate crumbs. The almond cake was also just about perfect with an almost lush texture, nutty rounded flavours with spikes of richness from a slather of strawberry-elderflower jam, and some burnt meringue on the side to cut through the richness.
This is my third time reviewing Leticia and she continues to impress. I loved the addition of tropical notes from her home country which brightened and enhanced the Irish ingredients while staying true to the restaurant’s neighbourhood Irish mission. Orwell Road is in safe hands.
- 8 Orwell Rd, Dublin 6
- bereenbrothers.com/orwell-road
