Tom O'Connell's new restaurant, in what was Madigan's in Donnybrook, will keep diners of all ages very happy indeed, writes CATHERINE CLEARY
HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IN restaurants is fascinating. We sit with straighter spines, smile and glitter that little bit more. We tuck our hair into place, smooth a napkin over our knees, look at the menu and then look at each other. It’s one of the joys of dining out, the chance to see and be seen.
There are some Dublin restaurants such as The Mermaid and Locks Brasserie where huge windows make you so visible to passers-by that your table may as well be on the footpath. Not the new O’Connells in Donnybrook. From the outside you can’t tell if it’s packed or empty. A D4 resident with a €14 million Lotto cheque in his back pocket could happily celebrate here without a passer-by being any wiser.
The reason is the bubbly glass windows in O’Connells which are as opaque as sucked barley sugar. This new venue for Tom O’Connell was once Madigan’s Pub. O’Connell has a famous sister in the shape of Ballymaloe’s Darina Allen, and his restaurant has migrated around Dublin 4, from Bewley’s Hotel to the Berkeley Court, and now it is here.
I’m bringing my dad to Sunday lunch. We both try to remember the last time we ate together, just the two of us. It was probably back in my student days. There have been many meals together since but they usually end with The Octopus Game: dad reaching tentacles behind, trying to catch his grandsons as they squirm by in kinks of laughter.
We are the exception as a table for two. O’Connells knows its market and it’s not two-person tables, the staple layout of most restaurants. Here it’s family groups, typically three generations. I imagine Confirmation and Communion weekends will have to be booked months in advance.
The €24.75 Sunday lunch is a buffet of starters, a main course ordered from the menu, and then back to the bar counter for dessert. There is also a quirky children’s pricing system – under-14s are charged €1.20 per year of age. That means my three tiddlers could eat for €14.40, which seems about right for the amount of food they would probably consume.
We order our mains, Castletownbere plaice for dad and roast lamb for me. And we ask for a glass of the house Australian Chardonnay (€5). Then it’s up to the bar for starters. Buffets can be a place where food goes to die. But not here. There’s a range of salads in big, beautiful bowls with a stack of cereal-sized dishes to one side. They look a bit small. But I’m urged to “help yourself to a sideplate too.” A bowl is plenty.
There’s a potato salad with luscious chunks of smoked salmon and flecks of chives, a fresh couscous salad that hasn’t dried to gritty pellets as this salad can. Crisp juicy apple chunks, cucumber and celery are combined with walnuts, but (and here’s the tasty twist) the walnuts are toasted, which make them much more nutty and moreish. And there’s a simple platter of superbly tasty sliced tomatoes with a sprinkling of cubed onion. Last is a Caesar salad that you assemble yourself from fresh leaves of Romaine lettuce, crisp lardons, croutons and a salad dressing. Everything is delicious, like food you would make from your fridge, if your fridge contained top-notch ingredients. Hot starters include a goats’ cheese pastry and flaky vol-au-vent cases which are filled on the spot with creamy mushrooms so the pastry doesn’t go soggy under the sauce.
Our main courses arrive on piping hot plates. Dad’s plaice is fresh and perfectly cooked, browned in butter. My lamb is a thick slice from a roast that is very tasty, with a just-pink centre and covered in a gorgeous gravy. My vegetables, which come in a hot silver pot, include a creamy portion of great mash, which has lashings of butter in it, some of the most carroty carrots I’ve had in a while, and broccoli florets bright with colour and flavour. It’s traditional Sunday lunch fare, just done really well.
At the dessert stage the buffet approach really comes into its own as you can try as many as you like, and they all look great. I go for a portion of bread and butter pudding, which has had its decadence increased by the use of croissants, instead of bread, baked in an eggy cream and flecked with juicy sultanas. An apple crumble is tangy and sweet and the sherry trifle comes with a boozy rush that speaks of a heavy-handed pourer in charge. “It’s more sherry than trifle,” dad says, not minding in the least.
The grey euro is in force here. The set menu price, including tea and coffee, takes away the prospect of any heart-thumping moments when the bill arrives. It’s warm and friendly with really good service. A generation reared on home-cooking can bring their children and grandchildren here knowing that it’s going to be good.
As an icy wind takes hold outside, in all kinds of ways, it’s comforting that the waiter initially presents dad with the bill. There are places you go to be seen. This is a place you go to be fed, really well fed. Lunch for two with one glass of wine comes to €54.50.
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As we were going to press, news came in that O’Connell’s had lost its head chef, Lorcan Cribbin, formerly of Bang Café. “The style of cooking he does involves more staff and we would price ourselves out of our comfort zone,” O’Connell explained. Ninety per cent of O’Connell’s customers wanted an early bird option rather than going a la carte, he had discovered.
Cribbin said he could understand O’Connell’s concerns about the future and they parted amicably. The Laois chef came back to Ireland 11 years ago and earned a reputation as a talented chef. He was happy with O’Connell’s respect for good ingredients and had hoped the partnership would work. “I’m just trying to cook middle-market food. When people go out to eat I think they should have something they can’t do themselves at home. At the same time, good food is all about eat-ability.” He is considering heading back to London for work and commuting home to see his young family. Cribbin was not cooking on the Sunday I visited.
