A survivor with style

There's an elegant charm about the Tea Room that makes it a glamorous room to eat dinner in, writes CATHERINE CLEARY

THERE’S SOMETHING OF the doughty old doll about the Tea Room in the Clarence Hotel on Dublin’s Wellington Quay. If restaurants were people, she would be a rake-thin dowager in a Chanel suit with painted nails and a roguish glint. This place is, if nothing else, a survivor, and ever since someone mentioned getting a great plate of risotto there, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to visit. It took just two texts from friends I don’t see often enough to settle on an early sitting for their market menu at €23 for three courses.

I arrive to find them tucked into the railway carriage-like snug in the Octagon Bar finishing something pink with crushed ice in cocktail glasses. My friend tells me it’s not her first time as a food critic’s dining companion. On her last outing she was dubbed a “flame-haired siren”. There will be nothing as exciting happening here. I will call her Companion A. Companion B is taking his role seriously: he has gone through his memories of visits past to come up with some gems.

There was the time the two of them met for lunch there (long lunches – remember them?) having negotiated a security cordon on the way in. At around 3pm the staff evaporated and everything went quiet. It turned out the owners, some band called U2, were playing on the roof. Then a longer time ago, he remembers the food offering was tinned tuna with orange segments and the money at the end was tucked into a cash box and you left with a handwritten receipt.

The Tea Room has seen some days. And one of them is pictured on the back of the menu, which shows a photograph with a patina of cracks and folds and a chef in a toque standing at the centre of the old dining room, complete with carpets. A ghostly waiter in tux stands to his left and light pours in the gigantic windows on to the crisp linen. The sturdy mahogany chairs in the picture are empty. But you can almost smell the cabbage and Woodbines.

This is an elegant place, with the sheen of new swank that impressed us all in the 1990s now settled like face powder into the wrinkles just a bit. The dining room is a little empty and chilly when we arrive. We get a large round table by the windows. The menu is simple and a charming waiter recommends two à la carte options, the smokies, a smoked fish starter (€8.95) and the steak (€26). It is a “you had me at hello” moment and B willingly takes both recommendations and opts for a rib-eye, medium, for main course. I’m going on the market menu with a starter portion of wild mushroom risotto with a white truffle sauce, and the glazed pork belly for main course. The third member of our party goes for the smokies, too, and keeps the fish theme swimming with the fish pie for mains.

Our waiter recommends a Provençal white wine, a Château La Coste, Cuvée Lisa 2008 (€24.95), which is delicious, and has the magical effect of seeming to be without alcohol, until the night air hits me outside later.

My risotto comes on a beautiful white plate with a deep bowl. There is a mound of creamy brown rice ringed with a froth of truffle cream and generous shards of Parmesan just wilting at the edges in the heat. Risotto is a dish for our times. I would like to see risotto houses springing up where once there were pizza joints. You could have a basic risotto bianco blipping away in a pot and an array of tasty ingredients that could be added on the spot for customers. This one is great, a touch oversalted, but very tasty. The smokies starter consists of shallow bowls of smoked haddock, tomatoes, spring onions and a cream sauce with melted cheese crisped under a grill. It’s clever and tasty.

My pork belly main course is great. It has been rolled and cooked slowly and then glazed with a honey and soy dressing and roasted off. It sits on a bed of gnocchi in a creamy sauce with punchy little “sunblushed” cherry tomatoes, the coyer cousin of the sundried. The meat has a seam of glistening fat inside which has leant its flavour to the pork. The ribeye delivers on its promise and the fish pie is pronounced delicious – fishy, with a light airy topping of whipped mash, again just a little oversalted.

For dessert I take a gamble with a coconut and passion fruit crème brûlée. I’m delighted to have my deep-seated prejudice about tinkering with classics challenged here. The passion fruit flavour has been blended smoothly with the eggy cream and gives it a tangy top note. B’s rhubarb crumble with honey ice-cream is lovely; vibrant rhubarb, still pink and chunky under a lid of golden crumble. A chocolate fondant sponge with toffee sauce is also great, the first spoonful prompting a spill of thick chocolate sauce on to the plate.

The chef here is Mathieu Melin, a Frenchman who is still in his 20s. His CV lists stints at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud and the Four Seasons. His predecessor Michael Martin had restaurant groupies following his every move in the Tea Room’s heyday in the 1990s. Had things gone differently we might be getting hot-stone massages here rather than hot dinners. In 2007, the Clarence got planning permission to gut the place, leaving just the facade, and build a nine-storey hotel with a spa and pool in the basement. A glass rooftop restaurant was part of the plan, which now, like so much else in this city, is on ice. As we retire to the bar to drink more wine by the glass, I can’t say I’m sorry. I prefer the company of glamorous ghosts in this old ballroom full of memories.

Dinner for three with coffees and a bottle of wine comes to €128.35.

Twitter.com/catherineeats