Tom Doorley tries a new restaurant with a mission in Co Waterford
There are various ways of launching a new restaurant, but by far the most cost-effective one is to depend on word of mouth. Good news travels fast. You can, of course, also print a kind of mission statement at the start of the menu. This is what Andrew Quealy has done for his new Q82 Restaurant in Dungarvan, a big, bright room above an equally new gastropub (of which more anon, as soon as I pay a visit).
Now it's brave to quote Saint Augustine at the best of times, but in the preamble to a menu it's almost tempting fate. Too many restaurateurs seem to share Augustine's prayer, "oh Lord, make me good, but not just yet "
Quealy, on the other hand, refers to the summum bonum or "the good life" and expresses the hope that his own idea of what this constitutes will contrast sharply with that of the saint. He says that his idea of the good life is when you're "with good friends eat good food drink good wine and have a great night".
We had a family outing to Dungarvan, in holiday mood, and had a darn good meal. In fact, I could find nothing to cause me to quibble. An amuse bouche of roast mushroom soup with thyme and cream was saltily delicious and deeply flavoured.
A little square of lasagne composed of filaments of wonderfully tender veal and very fine pasta, topped with a fried quail's egg, was one of the best starters I've tucked into in a very long time. I'd go so far as to say that it was inspired. Crab mayonnaise - very light in texture but full of taste - with baby gem leaves and lemon creme fraiche was as arrestingly simple as it was highly successful. Pea and mint risotto with crumbled feta (a nice, sharp counterpoint) was surprisingly fresh, delicate and light, an example of how a classic can be improved.
Our younger diners had passed on starters but ate carnivorously at the main course stage putting away a very substantial aged - perhaps not quite long enough to develop real flavour - sirloin steak, and a crown of spring chicken, both without the adult trimmings but with good, crisp chips, between them.
Confit of pork, which has become almost compulsory on fashionable Irish menus, was a fine meaty example of the dish, meltingly tender and well flavoured. Irish pork, for the most part, has become rather like chicken in that it provides a vehicle for other flavours, a kind of animal tofu. A good confit enhances the porkiness of the meat, underlining that the flesh of animals needs fat for flavour. This simple fact may not go down well with consumers but there's no getting away from it.
Pasta dishes are available as starters or as main courses (€9 as against €16) and our main of canneloni with wild mushrooms, goats' cheese and ricotta with red pepper sauce and Parmesan cream could have been a disaster area in less skilled hands. In the event, all the details had been thought through and it worked very well.
The grown-up version of the crown of chicken came with grilled pleasantly smoky grilled vegetables and a slightly redundant goats' cheese tortelloni.
Only two of us managed dessert: a pleasantly gloopy panna cotta with rhubarb compote and excellent ice cream with home-made shortbread biscuits.
This is an impressive new restaurant that could hold its own anywhere in the country. The cooking is clever, controlled, disciplined and just inventive enough. The space is delightful, the service is good and the prices are not outrageous. In fact, if you have the early bird menu, a bottle of decent wine and a couple of coffees, you should get out on the sunny side of €100 for two. The five of us clocked up €171, including a glass of Riesling and and a bottle of Spanish red, two espressos, several Cokes and lots of mineral water. That's not bad at all for such a satisfactory experience.
Restaurant Q82, 82 O'Connell Street, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, 058-24555
WINE CHOICE
Definitely not the usual suspects in a short but very interesting list selected from James Nicholson, Wines Direct and David Dennison. Domaine Jean-Luc Mader Riesling from Alsace is €27 or €7 a glass, a steely but ripe Alsatian, while Escarot Crianza, full of ripe Tempranillo fruit and oodles of oak is the same price. Both of these wines offer real value. Other highlights include Bouchon Malbec (€26), a Chilean with Old World style; silky Terres Dorées Beaujolais (€28), which is better than many a Fleurie; Charlie Melton's turbo-charged Oz pink, Rose of Virginia (€36); and peachy, fresh Pazo de Senorans Albariñho (€36)