The WSJ's Ray Sokolov reports on his recent visit to high end Dublin restaurants. He enjoyed The Tea Room in Bono's hotel, with its reinterpretation of Irish classics like ham hock.
He likes Guilbaud. He found the $57 lunch to be an exceptional bargain, with pigeon, black pudding, croquette of suckling pig, or chicken crayfish quenelles with curry, etc. With round trip fares to Dublin from NY in December and January as low as $551, it could be worth a trip.
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[Guilbaud]- Service is unfaultable—well, almost unfaultable. The main dining room is spacious, modern and focused on a large, colorful abstract painting surmounted by a plaster head of Anna Livia, the goddess of the local river, the Liffey. In addition to the precious oysters, we tried "traditional crubeen"; crubeen is Gaelic for pig's foot. Guilbaud crubeen is a trotter sublimated into very thin circular slices of gutsy-tasting cold cut.
Wicklow lamb and Irish farm rabbit are justly celebrated and appear routinely on menus hereabouts. The Guilbaud preparations bore only tangential connections with the way these meats normally look on a plate. The lamb was a black rectangle, evenly scarlet within and delicious; the rabbit was a yummy boneless cylinder. Here again, the chef offered us the quintessence of the basic meat source, explored its fullest potential and took it as far as possible in a pure visual direction. Was $80 a fair price for such sensually exhilarating if ephemeral artistry? Consider that a single ticket to a Dallas Cowboys home game can easily run $400 online.
Wicklow lamb and Irish farm rabbit are justly celebrated and appear routinely on menus hereabouts. The Guilbaud preparations bore only tangential connections with the way these meats normally look on a plate. The lamb was a black rectangle, evenly scarlet within and delicious; the rabbit was a yummy boneless cylinder. Here again, the chef offered us the quintessence of the basic meat source, explored its fullest potential and took it as far as possible in a pure visual direction. Was $80 a fair price for such sensually exhilarating if ephemeral artistry? Consider that a single ticket to a Dallas Cowboys home game can easily run $400 online.
WSJ
He finds the service and timing at Thornton's to be a challenge, with 50 minute breaks in service, customers walking out in frustration, etc. However, he loved the food and the prices.
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At Thornton's, the Wicklow lamb comes out as an ennobled mixed grill—pieces of tenderloin, kidney and sweetbread, each prepared in a different manner, accompanied by a zucchini clafoutis, garlic confit and garlic sauce, for $68. The Armagnac-and-prune souffle would have been outstanding even if the waiter hadn't gently dropped a scoop of pear sorbet into it at the final moment of service at the table.
