The Pig's Ear

It’s probably the best room in town, though that’s not evident on an October night. The optimum time to dine here is to partake of a late lunch in summer, in the the top floor room, lingering over your second bottle whilst watching the ‘flanneled fools’ chasing a small red ball in the grounds of Trinity, across the road.

This Nassau Street premises used to house a vegetarian restaurant, called, if memory serves me right, The Runner Bean. There used to be a good vegetable shop below, bearing the same name. Back in the previous Dark Age it was one of the few places you could buy exotic delights such as aubergines, asparagus and the unbelievably exotic red and green peppers, things we now take as part of our foodie heritage. The vegetable shop is still there but as shadow of its former self; these days it’s more a sandwich bar with a few token withering veg, a sop to the chattering classes who may have need of a few sprigs of broccoli to point up the hen tit. The vegetarian restaurant was actually quite good, albeit of the ‘brown food on brown plates as eaten by people sporting beards and brown sandals’ ilk; what, if you were charitable you might call ‘dull but worthy’.

The next incarnation was as far from the carrot crunchers as you can imagine. It was called Jacob’s Ladder and the chef proprietor had, I’m sure, stars of the fat rubber man variety in his eyes. The restaurant’s glory was its tasting menu, umpteen courses of over-wrought tortured food that, on the two or three occasions I dined there, reminded me of nothing but Dr. Johnson’s remark about a women preaching – “the wonder is that is is done at all”. Jacob’s Ladder was the subject of glowing reviews, one at least so effusive it’s a wonder that the tyre guys didn’t surrender and send over a bagful of stars. Alas, for all the culinary pyrotechnics the proprietors, in my opinion, neglected to recognise that the first duty of a restaurant is to make its customers feel comfortable and cherished.

The premises are now occupied by a new dining enterprise. Called ‘The Pig’s Ear’ it’s a joint venture between a chef, Stephen McAlister and a front-of-house expert (and I don’t use the term lightly), Andrea Hussey. Andrea’s previous occupation was as the charming manager of L’Ecrivain’s dining room. I hesitate to call her ‘maitresse d’ because of the presence in L’Ecrivain of Sallyanne Clarke whose huge personality always seemed to echo round the restaurant’s walls even on those rare occasions when she was at home with her feet up. Stephen is an interesting phenomenon. Though still young, it seems a long time since his cooking turned Vico, at the Queen’s in Dalkey from one of those quasi-Italians best avoided into an enjoyable place to eat. His career got a fillip when he was chosen as chef for the initial series of that treacle fest known as RTE’s The restaurant. Shortly thereafter he opened his own restaurant, following Kevin Arundel into the basement of Longfield’s hotel. I ate there a time or two and always had the impression that young Stephen was maybe trying too hard to impress. “If only he’d chill a bit, this guy could be really good”, I remember thinking.

Well, it’s happened. My expertly-fashioned ‘Pig’s Ear terrine’ served notice that this was going to be quite a good evening. A substantial chunk of it, prettily decorated with cornichons, thinly-sliced scallions and crispy slivers of pig’s ear arrived and before you lot start going “yech” I should say that the lug holes just tasted like… ..pork. Sibella for her part was very happy with the more mundane, though very well executed chicken liver parfait. As ballast we got a plateful of really good bread and some decent toast.

The mains we chose were not perhaps the most adventurous but were perfect for the night that was in it, light rain and a hooligan wind. Sibs had the shepherd’s pie, a large portion crammed into a glass jar. It came accompanied by some perfectly cooked spinach which made the side dish of the same that I’d ordered somewhat redundant. Pity they didn’t tell us. I chose the bacon and cabbage, a dish which, because I wasn’t force fed it as a child, I really enjoy, though my preference is for butter beans with my salt pig. Sibella said my plateful was so prettily arranged that if she’d been presented with it she might have acquired the taste instead of bribing her sister to devour her ration.

I wasn’t mad about the wine list. Clearly someone with a bit of savvy had put it together but there were a few too many duff options at the affordable end. We nabbed a bottle of albarino from Rias Baixas, the Spanish white kit that wine writers have been talking up for the last couple of years. What many don’t seem to realise is that there are good and bad albarinos. This one was average at best.

We took a dessert between us; a spectacularly good lemon tart accompanied by a raspberry sorbet. I think there are nicer combinations; I’d love to have had the tart with (home made) vanilla ice cream but that’s a minor niggle. A huge plus point for Pig’s Ear is the presence out front of the delightful Katrina, whom Andrea had the good sense to entice from L’Ecrivan; together with the two waiters, she made us feel welcome and paced the meal perfectly. Overall, a bright start for this restaurant, which definitely deserves your patronage. The cuisine is not overly flash. It’s more classy comfort cooking, of the sort most of us could maybe accomplish at home given a decent cookbook and lots of time but probably we couldn’t be arsed. Sensible, serious food, in a phrase.

The damage: €101 for 2 starters, 2 mains, 1 dessert, 1 coffee, bottle of wine

Ambience: ****

Quality: ***1/2

Service ****1/2

Value ***1/2

Overall ***1/2