I have always loved the patch of poshness that is the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. It was where I blew one of my first week’s wages on a brocade and velvet jacket that still hangs in my wardrobe, awaiting its moment. Anyone up for a 1980s tribute party?
The cheese savoury pancake from Hanky Pancakes was a regular dinner as a hungry student. And at this time of the year it feels Christmassy in a calm Bing Crosby sort of way, rather than a jangly, panicky, cold sweat kind of way.
Until tonight it hasn’t been a venue for after-dark dining for us, but now there’s Farrier & Draper. It’s an Italian. Yes, another one. Italian is the new black in the Dublin mid-range dining scene. They are coming as thick and fast as the cast of characters in an Elena Ferrante novel.
The Powerscourt’s latest restaurant in the basement is from the same songbook. Up some steps to the left of the grand steps is the bar part. There’s a speaker mounted on the outside wall which will be blasting the night air later when we climb the steps back up to street level. The restaurant La Cucina Farrier & Draper is to the right down in the basement. Much as I love the building I’m not so sure I’m going to love this restaurant.
The name is based, according to the website, on the farriers who “worked for the aristocracy that used to live in the house and the drapers – garment industry workers – who operated their business in Powerscourt over 140 years ago”.
This version would make my friend impressively ancient as he remembers those drapers. They were Messrs Ferrier, Pollock and Co. They bought the building in 1832, but it was several generations later when they rolled up their bolts of fabric in the late 1970s, roofed the place and turned it into a shopping centre. The unglamorous truth is that Powerscourt was a warehouse much longer than it was a townhouse.
"Why didn't they call it Ferrier & Pollock?" the friend wonders, reflecting actual history rather than some Downton Abbey meets Mr Selfridge half-echo of the past.
Anyway two things get us off to a good start. The place itself, like the rest of this building, is special. Brick vaults plastered and distempered have been left bare to flaunt their years. Frank spots a wall where the original arched chimney nook has had another square one built into it before finally being bricked up.
They have romanced the stone with candlelight and acres of thick, red velvet curtaining (of which Messrs Ferrier and Pollock would probably approve) and there’s a warm smell of baked cheese as you walk in the door.
Seating is in cosy corners and banquetted nooks and with those curtains softening the soundscape you can hold a conversation, a relief from the jangle and shriek of other louder places. And the food is good, in parts.
The best dish is the manzo, juicy slices of flank steak with peppery rocket and pickled artichoke hearts. The “aged balsamic” doesn’t have the syrupy heft that it should, but this wouldn’t be the first restaurant to drizzle on a paler version of the aged balsamic wheeze.
Polpette and an aubergine parmigiana come in small cast-iron pots “as hot as the hob of hell”, as Frank puts it. They’re both fine but each suffer from a sameness to everything in those volcanic bowls.
Meatballs and sauce are a muddy meld rather than a tangy marriage of tomato sauce to meat umami. The “vine tomato” in my aubergine parmigiana has given up its separate identity to blend in with the cheesy, roasted vegetable mix, where everything tastes vaguely the same.
There’s a good bowl of pappardelle, the pasta whose name comes from the Italian to gobble up. However, I would have liked them to run it through the pasta maker on a thinner setting as it’s leather-thick rather than taffeta-thin.
Desserts are great, a tiramisu that’s all booze and schmooze like a Dean Martin number and a jazz hands posset that teams passion fruit with Sicilian lemon and salted popcorn caramel.
So despite myself I like Farrier & Draper. The food is nothing to swoon over, but we have enjoyed the night for its comfort, whip smart service and sense of place that’s preserved in this lovely underground cavern.
It feels like a return to a brasher world when we walk up past that blaring speaker into the spill of street drinking in what was once Dublin’s very own garment district.
Dinner for two with mineral water and a bottle of wine came to €111.
Farrier & Draper Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, South William Street, Dublin 2. Tel: 01-6771220
Music: Fine
Food provenance: Limited. "Irish" and "organic" about the height of it
Facilities: Fine
Wheelchair access: No
Vegetarian options: Limited
THE VERDICT: 6½/10. A beautiful basement with food that won't offend anyone
Second helping . . .
There are no seats in the Fat Fox, a smart new coffee shop on Dublin’s Camden Row. So I carried out a great coffee and a large tub of porridge recently to eat al fresco on a bench in the sun. This hearty breakfast of creamy porridge with yoghurt and fruit compote topped with granola came to €4.50 including the coffee, which makes it a very good pitstop for breakfast on the go.
The Fat Fox, 38 Camden Row, Dublin
