WHEN YOU WALK into a restaurant and the first thing you see are little bottles of the lovely Brancaia estate extra virgin olive oil on every table, you know you’re likely to be in good hands. And then, when you see things like “Connemara air-dried meats” and “Donard pak choi” and “Bunclody rose veal” you breathe a sigh of relief. Well, if you’re like me, you do.
First impressions in restaurants are important. I have never eaten decent food in a restaurant that greets you with the hideous scent of air-freshener. Equally, I’ve never had a bad meal in a restaurant that assails your nostrils with the curious amalgam of sensory stimuli that amount to the smell – the reek, almost – of good cooking.
Anyway, three of us descended upon Bates in the village of Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, on a Thursday night and had a very good time. It was not a flawless meal – how often do you get one of those? – but there was a strong sense that these are people whose main concern is to feed you and look after you well, without dipping too deeply into your wallet. This is a very rare experience.
There’s a combination of authenticity and generosity about Bates. For example, the Dublin Bay prawns on toast, which were ordered by the companion with an even smaller appetite than mine, were all uniformly plump, came in huge numbers and sat upon a thick slice of grilled home-made sourdough bread that absorbed the prawny, buttery juices in a rather delightful way.
There was more toasted sourdough with another starter: a big dish of wild mushrooms (I noticed chanterelles and oysters, inter alia), with a buttery, creamy, thick “gravy” so to speak. This is the kind of dish that (a) I adore and (b) would do me as a complete meal.
Lobster ravioli with a bisque-like sauce were less successful but no hardship at all. The pasta could have been a little silkier; the filling, less augmented with what seemed to be salmon.
Our friend with the small appetite persisted with the prawns while we forged ahead.
Castletownbere turbot was cooked absolutely to a point and was presented elegantly, without being, if you follow me, fecky. There’s an awful lot of fecky food around and one of the things I don’t like about it is the amount of handling it has to get.
This was the antithesis of that, and the baby spinach leaves were just done (something that isn’t easy). The fish, on the other hand, was pretty bland, but the restaurant can’t be blamed for that. Anyway, how often do you see turbot for €22?
My great big veal Holstein – Wiener schnitzel – made with the properly reared Bunclody rose stuff rather than the awful Continental sort – was a fine, strapping dish. The veal was thick (and would have been better had it been beaten out more thinly, the only problem being that it would have overflowed the plate by a wide margin). It came crisply breadcrumbed with a soft fried egg and some good, salty anchovies.
Vegetables – sugar snaps, carrots and the like – were all good and there was a gently dressed salad of mixed leaves.
A single pudding – a lemon sorbet, was too sweet for us. We agreed that we like our lemon sorbets to be something of a shock to the palate. But you need sugar for the texture. It’s hard to get right.
We liked Bates. We liked the unpretentious but thoughtful food, the charming, friendly service, the cosy environment, the sense that a lot of diners knew each other.
The bill, with two decent bottles of wine, two coffees and a 10-year-old Armagnac came to €159. tdoorley@irishtimes.com
THE SMART MONEY
The €14.50 two-course lunch menu is a no-brainer.
Read Megabites, Tom Doorley’s blog on all things foodie, at irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites
Wine choice
On this 100 per cent Italian and pleasantly rambling list, house wines start at €4.95 for a Sicilian white and a Puglian red (€19.95 per bottle). Our Endrizzi Nosiola, not a grape you see much of, was crisp, fresh and lively at €31 and our red, a really delicious and complex Morellino di Scansano (a Sangiovese clone but not from Chianti) by Serpaia Maremma weighed in at the same price. If you like your reds brawny, €41 is actually a very keen price from Endrizzi’s Masseto. Brancaia Tre at €39 is a glorious Tuscan and Guidalberto 2005 (€74) is the second wine of now legendary Sassicaia (of which they have the 2004 for a very fair €174 should you be so inclined).