Cookes needs to go back to the drawing board, writes Tom Doorley
I was at school with Johnny Cooke, but I knew him only by sight. I also shared my secondary education with a certain curmudgeonly companion, who often accompanies me on restaurant visits, and it was with him that I first ate Cooke's cooking, in, I think, 1991. As the CC tucked into pan-fried calf's liver with wilted greens - pretty unusual in Dublin in those far-off days - he commented that Master Cooke had developed a considerable sense of subtlety since leaving the dear old school.
I knew what he meant. Cooke had belonged to a rather robust group at Belvedere in the mid-1970s. They were not noted for membership of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary; nor did they show any enthusiasm for pressing wild flowers. The CC swore that he remembers Cooke shaking younger students by the ankles, to extract their bus fares, but this is a wildly creative form of false-memory syndrome. That was someone else entirely.
Cookes Cafe, as it was called in 1991, brought a new kind of food to Dublin: what you might loosely and infelicitously describe as Cal-Ital. It was a great breath of fresh air, and nobody seemed to mind that the tables were too close together or that the service was atrocious. In the early 1990s Dublin was a very small place, and everybody ate at Cookes. Some of them came because they could rubberneck as Bono or Marianne Faithfull tucked into the calamari with chilli tomato sauce. But most descended on Cookes because Cooke and his team cooked very well indeed and delivered punchy flavours. I still remember an outstandingly simple and utterly delicious little salad of flat-leaf parsley presented without a fleck out of place, exactly as you wouldn't do it at home.
Cooke's business has had its ups and downs, but he seems to be settling down again and spending time in the kitchen. I gather that when he does take the helm the food still has the old spark. The guy can cook, and he avoids the cheffiness that so many of his contemporaries insist on. He was one of the first Dublin chefs to demand really good fresh produce, something that has still to catch on in a big way.
Cooke was not in the kitchen when we hit Cookes for a quick Monday lunch, and his absence was apparent. It was a perfectly adequate meal, far from cheap and far from memorable. The old reliable calamari - for heaven's sake, let's call it squid - floured, deep fried until almost properly crisp and served with a mildly apologetic tomato and chilli sauce, was okay. The deep-fried, unpeeled cloves of garlic were as tough as old boots and utterly redundant.
Piquillo peppers stuffed with salt cod was not entirely successful. The peppers had a curious tang of acidity despite their satisfactory texture and pleasant smokiness, and the salt cod was blander than it could have been. The dish was okay, but no more than that.
And now we make a regular return visit to an old bugbear. Confit of duck is meant to be exceptionally tender inside and exceptionally crisp outside. It's time the Restaurants Association of Ireland issued an edict on this blindingly obvious fact. Duck confit is a cheap, easy dish for a restaurant kitchen, of course, but that's no excuse for doing it badly. Cookes' duck confit arrived on the table with a skin as flabby as what one imagines C Montgomery Burns's steamed toast would be. I sent it back, and it returned in a somewhat more satisfactory form. The white-bean cassoulet was quite sound.
A small - very small - John Dory fillet, served in a filo parcel, was a touch overdone, but it had good flavour, augmented by basil, tomato, pepper and garlic.
The bill, with an extravagant €42 bottle of Bandol Rosé, mineral water and a couple of good double espressos, came to a painful €131.70, excluding service. Heaven knows what it would have been had we ordered some side dishes.
Judging by this experience, and that of several readers, Cookes needs to go back to the drawing board and Cooke needs to be more robust in driving the place forward. But he can do it.
Cookes Restaurant, 14 South William Street, Dublin 2, 01-6790536
WINE CHOICE The list is expensive enough and seems lacking in thought. Our Domaine Tempier Bandol Rose (€42) is known to be dear, but it's good and, as it happens, the only wine I know of that can tackle artichokes. The best buy is possibly the Teruzzi & Puthod Vernaccia, a crisp but honeyed white. Guigal Côtes du Rhône, always sound, is €25; Emilio Moro's lovely Ribera del Duero is not exactly a bargain at €45. Bollinger Cuvée Spéciale NV Champagne is a bit steep at €110 but, oddly enough, better value than Piper-Heidsieck at €75. Château Lynch-Bages 1995, drinking well now, is €190 if you're so inclined.