101 Talbot is about to change - into reassuringly safe - hands, writes Tom Doorley
BELLY PORK, EH? Cheap and fashionable, at least among chefs, and very boring. But it doesn't have to be. If I had a fiver for every belly pork dish that turned out to be as dull as ditchwater, confit and five spice notwithstanding, I'd have enough to dine extravagantly at Chapter One.
Is belly pork ever sublime? Well, the closest it comes to that can be had in Dublin at 101 Talbot, Chapter One's northside near neighbour and a restaurant with which that Michelin-starred establishment has a certain amount in common.
101 Talbot, like Chapter One, gets a lot of pre-theatre diners. And, like Chapter One, it takes food very seriously without being in any sense up itself. Both are cut from the same cloth, but 101 Talbot is in an upstairs room which is now a bit rubbed at the edges. People don't dress up to go there and while a visit to Chapter One requires, for most of us, a bit of well-merited financial planning, 101 Talbot is positively cheap by Dublin standards. The key thing these two restaurants share is a passion for food and a commitment to serving their customers as best they can within the categories in which they choose to be placed.
101 Talbot kicked off in the dark old days of the early 1990s and rapidly gathered a fanatically loyal clientele. It has long been a favourite of mine but one to which I had not returned for several years. And when I did, I heard the dreaded news that it is to change hands just as you read these words.
But fear not. Margaret and Pascal, among the best restaurateurs in the city, are giving way to Neal and Jenny, chef and manager respectively, thus ensuring a seamless handover and the future of what the New York Times, no less, has called an iconic Dublin restaurant.
But what of the food? The no-nonsense approach to good, hearty eating was exemplified by the spicy hummus with crudites (cucumber, carrot, peppers) we munched while scanning the short, but salivation-inducing menu.
Marinated pigeon breast with rocket and beetroot salad was brilliantly simple and impeccably judged, just the sort of thing you would probably not do at home. The meat was rare and juicy, with the sweet-and-sour beetroot, thinly sliced, picking up the earthy notes. An Asian salad of almost unbelievably tender squid was generously dressed with soya sauce and roasted sesame oil with garlic and ginger flavours emphasising the sweetness of the seafood. A purist might have complained that it was over-salty. I just lapped it up.
And then the belly pork. And what belly pork! Tender, slow-roasted, bathed in the most intense and porky cider gravy, served with crunchy spring cabbage. This was, quite simply, the best variation on the theme that I've ever encountered in Ireland and, needless to say, a clear indication of what the chef can do. He being about to become chef-proprietor. Hurray!
101 always has some good fish on the menu. On this occasion it was pan-fried fillets of John Dory with a pea puree, mildly infused with mint, and sautéed spuds. Perfectly simple, perfectly judged, and precisely what I wanted.
To cap it all, our waitress was so charming and so pretty that she persuaded us, two middle-aged, heterosexual males who had had quite enough to eat and who were vainly trying to recapture our lost youth, to order pecan pie and crème brûlée as the coup de grace. The pie was warm, redolent of butter and brown sugar, the crème brûlée was a perfect example of the classic version with no cheffy add-ons. A delightful example of up-selling.
We lingered far longer than we should have and finished with decent coffees.
Reprobates that we are, we ordered a bottle of white and a bottle of red (not quite finishing either) but prices are so reasonable that such letting down of what hair remains is only to be expected. The total damage came to a remarkably reasonable €110.15.
The wine list
The list is very short, cheap and carefully selected. Our wines were the lemony and very dry white Bergerac from Château de la Mallevielle (€24.50) which was new to me, and Prieto Picudo (€21.50) from Castilla y León which delivered lots of ripe fruit with a dash of oak. Schlumberger Riesling 03 (€24.50) from Alsace is a petrol-scented delight at this stage, Anticaia Salice Salentino (€21.50) is a raisiny red, and J Bouchon Carmanere Reserva (€23.50) is a great ambassador for Chile. Emiliana Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot (€18.75) offer brilliant value for money. Château Jolys Jurançon (€20, half-bottle) is a delicious and well-balanced sticky while Nicolas Feuillatte NV Champagne would be no hardship at €50.