The French Paradox

When, in response to the habitual social icebreaker “What do you do for a living?”, I tell people I write on wine and food I always get a variation on the same response – “A mucky job but someone has to do it, I suppose?” I can read their mind: here’s a man with his bum in a bucket of cream, who quaffs Krug champagne and snorts caviar and truffles off a silver spoon. No such thing as a crap wine or a bad meal has ever crossed this guy’s lips.

Reveal you are a restaurant reviewer and they immediately morph into a bitter cocktail of envy and resentment. They are not entirely won over even when you convince them you can say ‘gastro enteritis’ in five different languages.

Next they are trying to get me to dish the dirt on my fellow critics. Here I have to be careful. The Irish wining and dining scene is cosy, even claustrophobic. I don’t want to be fingered as a pariah by my peers so am at pains not to reveal the identity of the wine writer who thinks Chile is what you get when you go outside without your thermals; or of the restaurant Rottweiler who dips the pen in vitriol simply because a young Latvian waiter has failed to gift a window table.

I change the subject, asking them “What do you expect of a restaurant critic anyway?” Here, opinions diverge. Some hunger for knowledge, some for inside track. Others, practical folk, see you as a 52 weeks a year guide as to where to get a decent meal. Still others want to be entertained but leave you in no doubt that if you go the AA Gill route and mention food only in the last sentence you better be bloody funny for the other 973 words. Finally, there are the ghouls who like nothing better than to open their weekend paper and see some unfortunate restaurateur ripped to shreds or nudged in the direction of the bankruptcy court. There’s always a restaurant critic willing to oblige.

By and large, though, my fellow food scribes are a conscientious lot. Do this job long enough and you can tell when a restaurant is having a rare bad night, vis-a-vis a bad restaurant running on autopilot. And you can scan a wine list, scrutinise the mark-ups and see whether the proprietor is ripping customers off with extreme prejudice or merely taking the piss.

It helps if a critic has a healthy appetite and a taste for adventure. I know one who, years back, enjoyed a considerable reputation among the dining public despite the fact that the list of things this paragon can’t eat or drink reads like one of those interminable ‘Josephat begat Jacob who begat Joshua who begat…’ lists out of the book of Genesis.

A little learning doesn’t go amiss. Recently a critic dissed an Italian restaurant, saying the insalata Caprese could have done with some balsamic vinegar. Let me ask you a question: of the following ingredients, which one doesn’t belong in an insalata Caprese – olive oil, tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, salt, balsamic vinegar? Yeah, you’ve guessed.

So, fingers crossed, hoping I tick most of your boxes, I’m heading to The French Paradox in Ballsbridge to essay my inaugural restaurant gig for the Herald. French Paradox? You might think it a strange name and it is unless you are aware that it’s the quasi-medical term for the conundrum as to why the French, who eat and drink shedloads of all the wrong things, are so damned healthy. Nothing to do with the fact that stress is the big killer not butter, cheese, meat and wine, of course. No one tells you this because there’s a better bottom line in flogging health products than in alleviating stress. The potential margins in the former activity are only amazing. The other day I saw ‘fat-gobbling’ Oolong tea in a health food shop at €19 a packet. You can buy the same tea in the Chinese Emporium on Abbey Street for €2.45.

Anyhow, the French Paradox isn’t a restaurant in the real sense. Anyone going there and demanding a massive 3-course ‘fade’ is bound to be disappointed. There’s always a substantial ‘special’ on though; in the past the rib-sticking goose casserole has taken the edge off winter. But I prefer to think of the FP more as a place where you can enjoy exquisite morsels, accompanied by great bread, lovely olives (not the usual wrinkled vile salty shite out of a pickle jar) and fresh leaves. Oh, and washed down with decent wine from a carefully selected list culled from their wine merchant’s shop underneath. We kicked off with a fresh anchovy and salami starter, supported by three different tapenades, which we accompanied by a glass of Ribera del Duero white, a decent though not earth-shaking wine from what’s being trumpeted as ‘The New Spain’.

We upped the ante a notch with the second course, the ‘assiette des plaisirs’ which translated as ‘four ways to do foie gras’ or ‘thrombo on a plate’ depending upon your point of view. I’m not going to go into the morality of foie gras; this over-mature food freak just adores the flavour and texture, especially when teamed with (Ginger to foie gras’s Fred) a bottle of luscious Sauternes, €22 in the shop, €39 in the restaurant, reasonable I felt.

We were stuffed, couldn’t do dessert, though the crème brulée might have tempted. Coffee was better than I remember – and I fear I’m going to bore the arse off you with this one in future reviews ‘cos I’m mega picky about the small brown bean.

Run by a smashing couple, Tania and Pierre, the FP is utterly unique. I love it. To vote it ‘value for money’ depends maybe on a slight readjustment of your approach to dining out. But only slight.

The good: First rate ingredients. Carefully chosen wines at non-rip-off prices.

The bad: Appalling and slightly too loud music. Friendly but neglectful service – a touch more professionalism wouldn’t go amiss.

The damage: €119 for 2, including tip.

The French Paradox, 53 Shelbourne Road Ballsbridge , Dublin 4
Tel:+353 (0)1 660 4068