(Too) Great expectations

THIS intimate, pleasantly claustraphobic restaurant, tucked away almost in a neat fold in the city-centre street’s edifice, is on the Michelin recommended list so the bar is set reasonably high the very moment a booking is made.

It is a moot point whether this works in the restaurant’s favour or not. In circumstances like these, it’s so easy to be disappointed if you have expectations on a par with the high-calorie palaver surrounding so many of these gongs-for-grub promotion schemes.

The thrill of being utterly surprised by something wonderful and unknown is denied too. And if you find the emperor has no clothes, or maybe just greasy, shabby ones, then you can be left wondering if you need to reassess the criteria you use to form an opinion about any restaurant. Not only is your enjoyment of the meal undermined so too is your idea of what represents good food.

We — DW and I — visited on a busy Saturday night and shared the evening with a very happy, expressive hen party dressed in the most impractical military uniforms I’ve seen since Brendan Gleeson wore a carpet over his shoulder in Braveheart. Between Michelin recommendations and a bride-to-be wearing an unlikely looking L plate, the food would have to be very good to make an impression. It did but maybe for the wrong reasons.

DW started with a mille-fueille of crab meat. Though it looked fine, and had all the right, seaweedy textures; any depth of taste it might have had was left in the fridge. Too many busy kitchens struggle with keeping food fresh while serving it at the optimal temperature. A pity.

I’m sorry to say my starter did not turn the tide. Soused mackerel can be the very essence of piquancy. It should be a splash of saltwater on a plate, the place where sharpness and melting tenderness meet. My mackerel was just flaccid, beermat-grey flesh draped across a celeriac and radish roulade emasculated by being too long in the fridge. What a pity again because this dish at its best, or even something approaching it, can be back-stiffingly good.

DW chose the vegetarian main course and was not too impressed. It was an amalgam of a potato base, courgettes, roast peppers, brie, roast garlic and basil oil all buttressed by a make-fill portion of puy lentils. It lacked the kind of zest so many ingredients, if fresh and properly used, can create.

I chose from the opposite end of the spectrum — a Saturday night steak to close the week. It was a sirloin cooked as requested — rare — but paired with very unlikely bedfellows — white beans and salsa verde. It was not, in any positive sense, memorable.

It was a pity too that the meat, after years and years of campaigning to champion native breeds, was one of those sponge-like steaks with just the tiniest filament of fat edging the cut. If this is what the majority of diners still want then the beef farmers of Ireland have a lot more to do to promote their magnificent produce.

Desserts were simple and the best course of the evening.

DW chose the beguilingly described warm apple clafoutis with a white chocolate and cinnamon mouse. It was splendid and matched the reputation of the house.

I had an equally straightforward but really impressive dish — Vice Cream. This could not be simpler and was memorable in the very best sense. It was good vanilla ice cream bathed in Pedro Ximenez sherry — try it, you’ll be amazed.

The wine — a 2008 Abadia Retuerta Rivola Sardon de Duero — did not alleviate the general air of disappointment. Maybe we should have chosen whatever the hen-party troopers were drinking.

Fenn’s Quay restaurant, which has recently changed hands, is open 14 hours a day for six days a week and it is possible that we visited on a night when everyone was exhausted. Maybe on another night it would have reached the standards marked by a Michelin pat on the back.