Pacific

Friends always say to me “Oh you’d eat in a railway tunnel long as they served game and truffles” and yes, I would. Some go further and say I’m impervious to ‘atmosphere’. To counter these criticisms I took my sister-in-law, a bona fide interior designer, to dine at Eamonn O’Reilly’s Pacific. Here are her musings: “As you enter, the first impression is of a simple unadorned space, softly lit. The restaurant is divided into two main areas, the first certainly more atmospheric though the stale aroma that meets you at the door is maybe atmosphere of the wrong kind. The rear section is a double height room dominated by a curved partition wall with ‘portholes’. It hangs above you and gives you the slightly creepy feeling that you’re about to be run down by a liner – a counter-productive gimmick. Overall the place is predictable, inoffensive, with no great spark of originality or inspiration.”
Well, that’s the atmosphere, folks. What about the food? Sadly, that didn’t inspire either, Mary’s last sentence could have stood as epitaph for both. Starters: one okay risotto untidily presented, one fairly tasteless king prawn confection with a curiously bitter ‘tagliatelle’ (aagh!!) of vegetables. Intermezzi: a cup of froth-topped soup, ‘cappuccino’ (double aaagh!) of broccoli, tasty once you delved beneath the boring suds. Mains: one slow-cooked lamb shank so small the butcher’s up for infanticide; one admittedly juicy loin of venison served with scallops on a tart purée of beetroot, a total misalliance of flavours. Stylistically everything was very Californicated but real assembly-line stuff, food without heart and even the presentation was greatly lacking in oomph. Halo at The Morrison with their hilariously wicked OTT approach do this sort of thing so much better.
Boredom had by now set in and we picked our way in desultory fashion through a baked chevre cheesecake that in more congenial surroundings might have been very good indeed. Other highs were the decent breads, the good bottle of Macon Villages (e28) and the exceptional staff, mainly young Europeans, all cheerful and professional.
Overall, it was all a bit lacklustre, particularly for the prices asked but I should point out that not everyone shares our view. If you are 28-35, addicted to making serial mobile phone calls and chain-smoking between courses you will very likely have the time of your life in Pacific if last night’s clientele was anything to go by. Incidentally, I don’t recall being asked whether we wanted a smoking or non-smoking table. But then ventilation was so poor the question would have been superfluous.
The previous restaurant to occupy these premises was called Belgo, brainchild of two emigré Belgians who missed the beer, the moules frites and the backslapping bonhomie of their homeland. Their most successful enterprise was located in an old warehouse in London’s Covent Garden. Diners sat on monastic benches at refectory tables, scoffed mussels and cut-price lobsters by the tonne and swilled Leffe and Kriek beer. Fun, informal, irreverent, Belgo opened its doors on the south-western approaches to Temple Bar but by this time we’d become sophisticates who could handle saltimbocca and sushi; mussels were the food of our fathers. Belgo failed partly through Dublin’s harsh gastro-economics, but principally because it was a restaurant born out of its time.
I fear likewise for the S.S.Pacific. Come the day the unsinkable yuppie liner meets the iceberg of reality punters may opt to jump overboard and swim to the lifeboat of comfort food. All except for last night’s regulars who will cluster in First Class, frantically trying to fashion a raft out of mobile phones and fag packets while the band plays ‘Nearer My God to Thee’.
I like Eamonn O’Reilly. I like One Pico where, for some time now, his food has been wondrous in its quality and consistency. But in his new guise as culinary mogul, with Pacific and now Bleu in his portfolio I query whether he may have spread himself a bit thin. So I plead “Eamonn, get down here and crack the whip, mate. And do something about the ventilation.”