Oscar's companion wouldn't be Wilde about what this restaurant is doing in his name, writes Tom Doorley
The name of a restaurant will tell you very little about the food. Even so, I'm always a bit wary of places that incorporate the name of the chef or owner, with some obvious exceptions. Patrick Guilbaud, Kevin Thornton and Gordon Ramsay, for example. Lesser mortals run the risk of us customers thinking that the ego dominates the experience.
Well, unless Lord Alfred Douglas was cryogenically preserved and recently resurrected, I think we can safely assume that Bosey's Bistro (formerly McGrattan's) is run by the living. Not that there was much sign of life there during our recent Tuesday lunch. And I suspect that his fastidious lordship would be revolving in the family crypt at what is being done under his nickname.
Bosey's Bistro has one redeeming feature. If you want some serious 1996 Bordeaux at keen prices, this is the place to go. The only problem is that good claret demands decent food. Not exquisite, delicately prepared food, mind you. Simple roast lamb would do fine.
I'm told that Bosey's was a nightclub in the past, and the aura lingers. At lunchtime it's a gloomy cavern that could only have been made more depressing by the sight of someone with a mop and a pile of empties.
When we arrived, at 1.30pm, it was deserted. That should have rung alarm bells, but I simply asked a forlorn waiter, rhetorically as I thought, if the place was closed. And so we got shown to a table and, before I knew where I was, we were ordering. At least, I thought, we would have the undivided attention of the kitchen staff.
The ensuing lunch was pretty grim. A Caesar salad was made with cos lettuce, to be sure, but it was adorned with grey, greasy, cold lardons of bacon that looked like something from a pathology lab. Croutons, or slices of toasted baguette served on a side plate, were, if not entirely stale, certainly not fresh from the grill. The menu mentioned that this salad was to be served on a poppadom, which seems a very strange thing to do, but, mercifully, this element failed to appear.
While the edibility of this starter was debatable, the other starter was simply unusual. It comprised a spring roll of rather odd goats' cheese. Masses of goats' cheese, in fact, which was light pink in colour and exceptionally strong in flavour.
The plate on which it was served was decked with some salad leaves and dotted with a red substance that may have been ketchup.
Main courses were piled up in a style that I thought had died out some time ago. A chicken breast, sliced in two and stuffed with some sort of grey material that may have involved walnuts, had been grilled and then placed on a "risotto cake".
This deep-fried pedestal had an outer coating of breadcrumbs and comprised the kind of rice that usually comes, seasoned, ready to boil in the bag. At least, that's how I would set about re- creating it if I were mad enough.
All of this was sitting in a shallow pool of brown sauce that tasted of industrial oxtail soup or gravy granules. It was not pleasant. It also appeared with the other main course: rather good, if very salty, leek sausages and a mound of champ.
Passion-fruit cheesecake was described by my lunch companion as "stodge on a base of damp cardboard", which I thought was unfair until I tasted it. His other comments, on the particular shade of light beige of this dessert, are too painful to reiterate. A wedge of tiramisu cake was a darker beige, cold, bland and, again, stodgy. Both desserts came with a large helping of "berrie compote", which looked and tasted like blackberry jam.
With two double espressos, a bottle of Zinfandel and a couple of small mineral waters, the bill for this depressing meal in the middle of Dublin 2 came to €80.
Bosey's Bistro, 76 Fitzwilliam Lane, Dublin 2, 01-6618808
WINE CHOICE There's not a lot to get excited about in much of the list, unless your idea of fun is Wolf Blass Presidents Selection Shiraz (€38). Our Beaulieu Vineyards Coastal Zinfandel (€32) was pleasant. However, consider these serious Bordeaux reds, all in the 1996 vintage, and which should be drinking well now: Cissac (€49), Haut-Bages-Libéral (€65), Lascombes (€75) and Talbot (€99). Cheval Blanc 1992 is a keen €150, and the magnificent Château Mouton Rothschild 1983, now at its peak, is €295. The 1975, at the same price, is drying out and very tannic, while the 1980 (€350) is probably as dead as Bosey by now.