The Tea Room Dublin

[Andy Lynes]

The Tea Room is the restaurant in the U2 owned Clarence Hotel. It's situated between the river and the dreaded Temple Bar area of the city where you can get all the fiddle-de-dee and Guinness your little heart desires.

Dublin would not be my first choice city to spend 2 weeks working in, but work I did (having said that, it comes much further up the list than 3 weeks in Bedford, which I have also endured this year in the name of adequate risk management and control regimes in the company I work for).

I was glad then that The Tea Room is such an excellent place in which to kill 2 or 3 hours. The space is quite lovely (have a look here and click on the image for a bigger and better one). We were given a large table for three in a corner underneath one of the balconies from which we had a measure of privacy, not that we needed it, and an excellent view of the rest of the room.

Service, from the moment we were greeted to the presentation of the bill was friendly, informal, but very slick and full of good humour and enthusiasm by the bucket load. It was a quiet Tuesday night when we dined, but with sufficient trade to give the place some buzz, but I'd love to see it in full swing.

The style of food and front of house is broadly reminiscent of The Square in London, which is hardly surprising when you find out that that executive chef Anthony Ely was Phil Howard's number 2 for some period of time. The cooking is a similar mix of haute cuisine with punchy flavours with all affectation and bullshit removed.

Having said that, my starter was described as "A study of bacon, cabbage and potato", which I ordered because I detected some serious tongue in cheek menu writing. It was preceded by a little cup of pea soup with a mint cappuccino and a beautifully fashioned miniature cheese bread stick balanced on top of the cup. It was very nice, but had a note of heat coming from somewhere which made me glad the portion was a small one.

I think someone had been slightly over enthusiastic with the pepper mill as the cabbage veloute that came as part of the study suffered to a lesser degree from the same problem. The plate was completed by a bacon crisp, a ham hock and new potato terrine wrapped in cabbage, and a potato and bacon fritter with caper sauce. It all worked well, with the terrine being the highlight.

Other starters were a much enjoyed pan fried foie gras with onion tarte tatin, "wicked apple" cider sauce, and golden raisins, and a special of oxtail "stew" (my description) with a pancetta crisp and I think a horseradish cream/foam.

Main courses were a real high point, too often they can be a let down after a flash-bang start to a meal. The pronounced game flavours of a roast mallard breast and confit leg were allowed to shine through a finely judged duck sauce. A small portion of very rich parsnip puree was an enjoyable hint of decadence, with only an overcooked (i.e. slightly burnt) cider fondant potato docking points from what would have been a 10 out of 10 dish. Salsify advertised on the menu was nowhere to be seen, but a few small braised onions made a not unwelcome guest appearance.

An assiette of rabbit, feve and mint jus, sweetcorn pancake looked just amazing and was declared to be so by it's greedy recipient. A description which amounted to no more than "some rabbit with sweetcorn things, some more rabbit, a rabbit dim sum sort of thing and a bit of liver" didn't do the plate justice and I didn't get a look in on the tasting front so I can give you no more detail I'm afraid.

Desserts included an apple and blackberry queen of puddings, but my home-made vanilla yoghurt , apple granita, rhubarb crumble and rhubarb crisp was the show stopper as far as I was concerned. A large glassful of the rich, brulee like yoghurt was topped with the refreshing apple, and a dainty crumble topped tart was served on the side. A real stunner and an idea I want to steal for the next time I cook for friends.

Coffee was accompanied by home-made jammy dodgers and bourbon biscuits which were fine examples of the bakers art, and more appetising at that stage of the meal than your more usual plate of petit four. We drank a bottle of cabernet/merlot blend from South Africa at 58 euro chosen by the helpful sommelier. Menus were 49 euros a head for 3 courses which represents excellent value for cooking of this standard in what is a very expensive city to eat out in.

[stephen wall]

You didnt make it to any of our michelin starred restaurants did you?(2 star)Patrick Guilbauds,Thorntons (1 star)The Commons.Thorntons in particular is fantastic and has just moved to The Fitzwiliam Hotel on Stephens Green with its eyes firmly fixed on a 3rd star

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Nice to have you back Andy.

I am staying at the Clarence Hotel next week, so will be giving the Tea Room a try, along with a visit to the excellent Thorntons (my regular haunt).

[Andy Lynes]

LML - thanks.

I will be extremely interested to learn your thoughts about The Tea Room and particularly Thornton's, as I did in fact have dinner there last week. I'm going to start another thread about it.

[Andy Lynes]

LML - did you get to eat at The Tea Room in the end?

[Simon Majumdar]

I want to hear more from both of you about Thorntons.

I have not been in a long time but remember having a really great meal there and am in Dublin in a few weeks time.

S

[Andy Lynes]

I posted my rather rough and ready review of Thornton's here http://forums.egullet.org/ibf/index.php?ac...cb22bcfe0592918

[Andy Lynes]

Dinner tonight at the Tea Room :

Amuse Bouche of Gazpacho - rather under powered and not a patch on the version with crab I had last week at Putney Bridge.

Starter of Assiette of Salmon - fantastic fish cake on tartare sauce, smoked salmon stuffed with salmon mousse on braised fennel, smoked salmon on a buckwheat pancake and a tiny tranch of pan fried salmon on new potato with half a head of asparagus. This was great.

John Dory with hand rolled macaroni with mushroom and parsley cream was very good although the pasta was a little thicker than at the Square where it appears as a Phil Howard speciality, and the fish was a tad overcooked.

Dessert of strawberry jelly, milkshake and tuile with chantilly was very disappointing, despite being heavily sold as delicious by the waiter. I was surprised to see that the yoghurt dessert (another Phil Howard special) was absent from the list. I think they have hired a new pastry chef, who gets a credit on the menu, and who appears to be very fond of Novelli style caramel springs. Only 10 years too late. I didn't have coffee but was disappointed to see that the biscuits had been replaced by boring old chocolate truffles.

THe room, in the late evening sunlight, was showing its age and the service was a little slow at times even though the room was less than full. This however could well be explained by several large parties on the main and upper dining areas.

€100.00 including a crap bottle of M Charpoutier Crozes Hermitages (white) at €35.00, one beer and service. Quite expensive actually. Lucky I'm not paying. Roll on L'ecrivain.