Mad for seafood
Most of the urban ones were huge, cavernous places that used space poorly and served food that had a hint of ethnicity though no culture would claim it as its own. Thrusting people with shoulder pads drank pointless white wine while Simply Red or Sade filled in the brief silences.
We adapted the idea quickly and developed a genre almost unique to these islands — The Carvery. Some were/are wonderful but the majority owe more to industrial production lines than culinary skills. They were/are pit stops for busy people whose priorities are other than the karma enjoyed by the chicken korma they were about to eat.
As time passed another genre got a foothold in our lives, let’s call it the O’Gastro Pub. Very often, though not always, beside the sea, these places produced at least good, but often, excellent food.
Dotted all around the country they are refuges where you can expect to be well fed, well looked after, a drink in the bar fore and aft of your meal if that is your choice, and usually in a nice, interesting place.
Mad Fish Restaurant at Cronin’s Pub in Crosshaven, Co Cork ticks all those boxes.
It is the kind of place those companies who sell kit Irish pubs by the container load to foreigners try to emulate but never can. It has real character and an immediately warm and welcoming ambience. It is the kind of place locals might prefer to stay quiet about but proudly recognise that the people behind it deserve to succeed.
Cronin’s Bar is run by Thecla and Seán Cronin and the Mad Fish Restaurant by their son Denis. It was opened less than four years ago and focuses on fresh, local food at reasonable prices. Though the restaurant opens just two nights a week at this time of the year — Friday and Saturday — it opens six nights a week during the summer.
The food? Straightforward, robust and very easy to recommend.
Starters were scallops on a bed of leeks and a zesty plate of salt-and-pepper squid served with chilli and lime aioli. Both were very pleasing and properly cooked.
My companion — DW — chose brill (€24) and unusually left not a scale. It was simply cooked, well presented on a bed of potato. Unpretentious and thoroughly satisfying it epitomised the evening.
I had cod and chips (€18.90), a simple dish that stands on the fault line between junk food and excellent food. Frozen fish and frozen chips are all too common but, as we should all demand everywhere, not here. There were real chips and two generous portions of fresh cod cooked in a light unintrusive batter. Simple and impressive. Desserts were affogato and an excellent and generous fruit meringue.
All together a very satisfying experience and good value.
Cronin’s is an interesting bar with a great collection of bric-a-brac — some of them will talk to you — and wonderful photographs. It also hosts a film club and art exhibitions and there’s excellent porter too. These are more than enough reasons enough to visit Crosshaven but the Mad Fish restaurant should put it on your summer to-do list.
It seems exactly the kind of place Ireland must become if we are to rebuild our economy — imaginative and industrious, energetic and professional, self-challenging and making the best of resources at hand.
Three courses and coffee for two, a bottle of suitably-named Mad Fish — accurately described as a fresh and easy drinking West Australian white blend for €30 — all slipped in under the €100 radar but only just at €99.80, tip not included.
Restaurant open currently Friday and Saturday nights from 6pm, summer opening Monday to Saturday. Booking advisable.
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