Restaurant review: Habibi Grill on Cork's Northside will convert more Corkonians to Syrian food
Interior of Habibi Grill at Camden Quay, Camden wharf, Victorian Quarter, Cork, Picture: Eddie O'Hare
On a Sunday afternoon that has made a mockery of predictions, The Gambler and I enjoy a leisurely city stroll in scorching sunshine before crossing the Christy Ring Bridge from the Opera House to Habibi Grill. I’ve half-heard positive whispers and vague murmurings of the newly-opened venture but no clear or substantive information. It only heightens my delight upon discovering Ahmed Saqqa in the kitchen.
It is Saqqa’s second restaurant, this one in partnership with Oday Saker. Anyone opening a new restaurant these days is to be commended but there is something especially heartwarming about this latest chapter to Saqqa’s story, having arrived with his family in Ireland as a refugee from war-torn Syria in 2016 after a gruelling two-year odyssey. It is an inspirational tale, as they first found their feet in Ireland and eventually opened Four Liars Bistro, now a vibrant hospitality hub in the centre of historic Shandon.
Habibi Grill is in a ground-floor commercial unit of a charmless Celtic Tiger apartment complex. Smack bang on a corner of one of the city’s busiest junctions, it is a nexus for especially large volumes of traffic from the Northside and visitors arriving into Cork via the Mallow Road.
We are talking a lot of traffic and a curving floor-to-ceiling glass wall running along the entirety of the exterior at first feels like a goldfish bowl, diners on full display to drivers waiting for the lights to change.
As in the Four Liars, budget for interior design is minimal, so an unaffected simplicity is embraced. A serving counter/bar area sits in front of the entrance to an L-shaped room. Laminated flooring is pale grey, high-backed chairs wear red fabric covers, tablecloths made from the same material.
Several plants and unobtrusive ornaments complete what is essentially a blank hospitality canvas. Unlike many modern Irish restaurants that begin with a ‘concept’ and a colour swatch, Habibi Grill calls to mind those rather anonymous-looking Southern European restaurants and cafes in similarly nondescript spaces where friendly service and good food do the heavy lifting.
Pared back to basics, it is a reminder of the non-negotiables of dining out: To eat well and enjoy the company of others. Low budget interiors often also equate to more affordable food, bills, and pleasant surprises, rather than further fiscal assaults on already ravaged wallets.
We begin with the falafel platter (€18.50), housemade and deep-fried to a mahogany-coloured crunch on the outside, with the first bite revealing a soft, textured crumb within, verdant with coriander and underpinned by the earthy hum of cumin. It is drizzled with tahini and served with salad leaves, hummus and Syrian flatbread — a meal in itself, especially when served with impeccable creamy hummus, piquant with garlic and spices, and made from premium Syrian chickpeas.
Saqqa adores Irish lamb, far superior to lamb available in Syria, and it is cooked with reverence. Oven-roasted lamb shank — finished on the grill, glistening with fatty juices — looks mouthwateringly good but is an edible bridge too far in high summer.
Instead, we opt for kofta kebab (€22.50), skewers of minced lamb potent with the sweet, clean kick of traditional Syrian seven spice mix and fresh parsley. It too comes with hummus, bright, crunchy, onion- and pickle-laden salad, tahini sauce, and multi-coloured spiced basmati rice in which cinnamon and coriander sing loudest.
We finish with farrouj mashwi (€24.50) or, truth be told, it finishes us, a full chicken, cooked in a rotisserie oven and then charred over the grill to a succulent and deeply flavoured finish. It is quartered, served with fries and authentic aioli, an emulsion of oil and crushed garlic with no egg, rather than the imposter garlic-spiked
mayonnaise that passes for aioli in so many Irish restaurants.
Any criticism I have of otherwise delicious, homely fare, elevated by the sophisticated spicing born of an upbringing in Aleppo — one of the world’s first and greatest ‘food capitals’ — relates to bought-in produce rather than anything produced in-house.
One or two condiments, including a lacklustre pickled cabbage, and bland imported salad leaves could be much improved upon by using easily-accessible superior Irish alternatives.
When I first met Saqqa, he spoke of how his daughter, then five or six, would start awake at night, terrified by the sounds of bombs going off in their native Aleppo. Today she is a lively, confident and engaging young woman of 17 with a broad Cork accent, she and her fellow teenage server running the room with preternatural aplomb. An impending wine licence, just weeks away, will only add to the experience.
Four Liars is thriving but still under the radar for many Corkonians. Saqqa’s ‘descent’ down the hill from Shandon to the city centre with Habibi Grill is going to convert a whole new swathe of Corkonians, introducing the tastes of one great food capital to another.
- Lunch for two, €66.50
- habibigrill.ie
