Inside Dublin’s newest high-end restaurant, complete with US celebrity chef

Dublin city centre gets a new rooftop restaurant on Thursday, when Jean-Georges Vongerichten at The Leinster opens its doors. The 55-seater (120 when the two outside terraces are in use) is a collaboration between the chef and restaurateur, who has 13 restaurants in New York City and associations with many more across the globe, and the owners of The Leinster, The Dean Hotel Group (whose hotels previously fell under the Press Up Group). The Leinster, a 55-bedroom boutique hotel, is on the site of former nightclub, Howl At The Moon on Mount street, and has a bar at ground floor level, and views across Merrion Square and the city from its restaurant on the top floor.

Vongerichten’s name might not be immediately recognisable to many Irish restaurant-goers, but the 66-year-old Alsace-born chef and entrepreneur is restaurant royalty in the US, where in addition to New York City and state, he has restaurants in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami Beach, Nashville and Philadelphia. His eponymous flagship, Jean-Georges, on Central Park West overlooking Columbus Circle, has two Michelin stars.

“A savvy businessman and restaurateur, Jean-Georges is responsible for the operation and success of 60 restaurants worldwide,” the restaurant group’s website proclaims. Only 46 of them are namechecked there (Dublin hasn’t made it yet), but the spread is wide, from Brazil to China. “We are not counting any more,” Vongerichten says when we meet for breakfast at The Leinster, pre-opening. “All the restaurants in New York, we own and run, outside of New York, we have partnerships,” he adds.

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In London, the Jean-Georges name is associated with two restaurants in The Connaught hotel in Mayfair, and it is through his activities in the British capital that the connection with Press Up was made. “Paddy McKillen, senior, is a good friend of mine. We met through mutual friends about 15 years ago, in London, then I went to Chateau La Coste [McKillen’s estate in the south of France] many times. We did a couple of things with him in London and then last year his son [Paddy McKillen junior] approached me and said, `we are building this new type of hotel in Ireland and would you join us?’ I said absolutely.”

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The new restaurant is expected to be a step up from the fairly middle of the road offerings previously launched here by Press Up, while remaining a modern, relaxed, all-day dining space as against a starched linen tablecloth operation. Vongerichten’s trademark meld of southeast Asian influences and French classical techniques will be brought to bear on Irish produce, sourced as locally as possible by executive head chef Ross Bryans.

Scottish-born Bryans has worked for Press Up for two years, in a variety of roles, and has an impressive CV that includes Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road in London (senior sous under Clare Smyth), five years at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud in Dublin and head chef at Jason Atherton’s Pollen Street Social in London.

Last week, Vongerichten flew in to Dublin accompanied by six key members of his team, for a 10-day fine tuning and bedding-in process, to train the Dublin team, and work on final menu tweaks with Bryans. “I am bringing our flavours from New York,” he says. “I am classically French trained but international when it comes to the palate. I worked in Asia for five years, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong.” He describes how a visit to Thailand kick started his lifelong fascination with Asian ingredients and flavours. “I am from Strasbourg, so I am more like a potato cabbage kind of guy,” he says. But discovering Thai food was a revelation. “Sweet, sour, salty, fragrant; it changes your life.”

Vongerichten is happy with the quality of ingredients he has found in Ireland. “We are working with local suppliers. The grass fed beef is fantastic and you’re on the ocean here so you have the best wild turbot, monkfish, cod, hake, langoustine. We don’t do good food without good ingredients, so it is very important to us.”

The restaurant’s launch dinner menu is divided into sections: caviar and crudos; appetisers; pasta, land and sea; sides. There is also a tasting option – a five course menu drawn from across the card. Prices are not available at the time of writing (Monday). Ross Bryans says it will be “competitive” and he sees the restaurant being pitched at a level he describes as “premium casual”.

The tasting menu opens with egg toast, caviar, herbs. This is followed by tuna tartare, avocado, spicy radish ginger marinade. The fish course is wild turbot encrusted with nuts and seeds, sweet and sour jus. Grilled lamb chops, smoked chilli glaze, roasted asparagus, is the meat course, with warm chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream for dessert. “We bring my flair, my sauces, my spice mixes, and use Irish ingredients; the products are spectacular,” Vongerichten says.

The cocktail list is innovative and Nathan Robinson, director of bars at Jean-Georges Management, points out that it is designed to work well with food. “Our cocktails are so low in sugar, like very dry. Savoury is a really good way to add flavour, because sugar is kind of the fat of the beverage world. So we’ve gone the other way.”

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Food will also be available at the Collins Club downstairs, a bar cum supper club that will have a menu of small plates and snacks, served until late. But it is the rooftop space, with its celebrity chef moniker, Jean-Georges at The Leinster, and its Insta-friendly interiors straight from the Press Up playbook, that will draw the culinary crowd. Brunch and lunch will also be served in a room that is going to be worked hard, and with hotel guests to cater for, breakfast is on offer too.

“I learned to eat breakfast in America. I am passionate about breakfast”, Vongerichten says as a trio of dishes from the menu land on our table. There is an avocado toast option, of course, topped with mildly spicy French Espalette pepper. Organic scrambled eggs have finely chopped broccoli and cheddar cheese mixed through their almost custard-like consistency, and the Jean-Georges touch comes in the form of a house made fermented red chilli condiment. “I like hot sauce with eggs,” the chef says. “It’s finger chillies, salt and vinegar, we let it ferment for two days, and fresh sriracha.” Alongside the nut butter, banana and maple syrup with the gluten free almond pancakes, there is a piped squirt of what looks and tastes just like cream but is in fact almond milk and banana, aerated in a soda siphon.

The bread and pastries on this occasion are from Bread 41 on nearby Pearse Street. “My baker is coming next week. The kitchen is too small to to do everything, so we are going to do our own ciabatta for the toast, we are going to do a sourdough, and a couple of pastries for the morning.”

Vongerichten intends to return to Dublin four times in the restaurant’s first year in operation, to work on seasonal menus. He enjoys the set-up momentum – “bringing 20 ideas and hopefully leaving with 40 ideas” – and the exchange of ideas. “For me travel is about meeting new people, seeing some new things new dishes new products.” He says that he and his team are also involved in the decor and fit out – although this one has all the hallmarks of a Press Up venue – and describes himself as “a frustrated designer”.

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With so many restaurants in his stable, does he have a favourite? “Yes, always the latest, so this one for the moment.” There is another favourite in his life too – his work. Unlike many enterprising chefs whose business expansion plans lead them away from the kitchen, Vongerichten, who will celebrate his 67th birthday next weekend, still cooks regularly. “This is what I do, it is my therapy, six hours a day of cooking therapy. I do what I like to do, which is cooking. I will never give it up.”