Believe it or not, I’ve had a few disappointments lately in seeking out good value
restaurants of quality in the capital with which to whet your appetites. “Surely not!” I hear you exclaim, as you put down your Americano and steady yourselves for the latest from the mighty metropolis. “With such a wide variety of places to choose from?” True. Very true. But, the fact of the matter is that if you want to fine dine in the €150-for-two bracket, you’ll find that a lot of folk just ain’t cuttin’ the mustard.
Imagine then, if you will, my relief when the great god Bacchus, god of
wine and our revels, smiled sympathetically down as I wandered disconsolately along South William Street, and guided me to a place of infinite reliability and culinary pride. Its proprietor I know to be a man for whom anything less than a near neighbour of perfection is anathema – Grogan’s pub of course, being a notable exception. If
Johnny Cooke wanted to be sure that his carefully chosen and well prepared
menu and
restaurant could be left any day of the week in safe, assured and loving hands, then he could not have chosen better than he did in Denis Bonnard in the cauldron and Luciano Stella in the fray.
Our indulgence began with some complimentary olives and an assortment of Cookes’ famous
breads, as I downed a tawny port and perused the bill of fare. Here to start are soups, salads, antipasti and fish aplenty. However, I opted for carpaccio of marinated beef, arugula, parmesan shavings, Dijon mustard sauce and toasted ciabatta (€11.50); whilst my willing accomplice had duck foie gras ravioli with fine herbs, aged parmesan and truffle butter (€12.50). Sounds good, eh? Well it was. The beef was perfectly marinated and melt-in-the-mouth, whilst the freshness of the egg pasta sang on the palate with the finely herbed foie gras in perfect harmony.
I recently read of Cookes that it used to be filled with celebrities, but now you were more likely to find people from Mullingar. If that be the case, I must congratulate those people for recognising good food and service when they see it, because that’s what I go there for, and I haven’t been disappointed yet.
The package I received for my main course, opened by my attentive waiter Daniel, was John Dory en papillotte with cherry tomatoes, shallot, garlic, white
wine, herbs & Estate extra virgin olive oil (€28) – and a beautiful present it turned out to be. “The favoured one” had dry aged fillet of beef, with aged balsamic sauce, fondant potato and horseradish cream. The fillet was cooked perfectly to taste, our only quibble being that perhaps “balsamic sauce” might as easily have read “balsamic vinegar”.
From a
wine list that could do a bit better, we selected two half bottles; Macon Lugny, which never disappoints, and a Melini Chianti 03, which is as characterless a
wine as I’ve tasted in some time. Both are around €15, with Browns Brothers’ excellent orange flora Muscat at €6, and an overpriced Inniskillen ice
wine at €20 per glass for afters. To add to my list of crème bruleé, their lemon and cinnamon scored a respectable 7/10, and their sublime tian of chocolate mousse did all that was expected in the guilt department; both at €7.
Standards have begun to improve, efforts are being made, the gods grumble less often. But until many
restaurants start to love their customers a bit more, and compete at this level, you can never have too many Cookes.
Cookes, 14 South William Street,
Dublin 2,Tel. 01 6790536
