RestaurantsCan busy Carluccio's possibly live up to all the hype?, asks Tom Doorley.
THERE'S NO SIGN that the allure of the new is starting to wear off. Carluccio's seems to be the busiest few square metres in all of Dublin 2 these days and this must be a great relief to its investors, who are paying a rent which is rumoured to be a substantial amount.
That's a lot of pasta and cappucinos. And it's no surprise, really, that the tables are very close together. Such, indeed, is the intimacy that you can examine the neighbours' dishes in some detail. And overhear their comments.
The following exchange took place between one of our neighbours and someone who appeared to be a member of management staff.
"Could I have a place setting, please?"
"A what?"
"A place setting."
"What?"
"Cutlery."
"What?"
"A knife and fork, please . . ."
"Oh."
The management type continued to appear and disappear while one waiter served what seemed to be upwards of 20 tables. And he did so with remarkable efficiency and cheerfulness. Watching him, however, made me feel exhausted. We managed to compare notes with two nearby tables. At one, the antipasti for sharing was given a very enthusiastic thumbs-up ("absolutely perfect"), while at the other the lasagne was damned for no particular reason ("but I'm not a great pasta fan"). Our minute bowl of olives (€2.45) were pleasant. And so was the mushroom and pancetta soup, a broth-like affair that would have benefited from rather more concentration of flavour.
Deep-fried squid rings with some sad salad leaves could have come from anywhere. I don't quite know what we were expecting, but I suppose we felt that there would be a bit of Carluccio's pzazz. Especially at €8.95.
At home, our mozzarella consumption soars during the summer months when we have a prodigious supply of our own tomatoes. There's nothing quite like cutting into the flesh of a tomato, still warm from the sun, and letting those concentrated juices flow over the snow-white cheese, mingling with good olive oil and the spicy scent of torn basil leaves.
And so, I very rarely eat such a dish in a restaurant (except in Michael's of Mount Merrion, where the Italian tomatoes are the stuff of legend). At Carluccio's, they compensate for the lack of essential tomato-ness by roasting them. And it works moderately well, even if the accompanying raw ones are then shown up for what they are. The mozzarella was good, creamy and rich, and the foccacia, basil and olives did what they were supposed to do. But again, it was merely a sum of the parts. No eureka moment, no magic.
Asparagus risotto was a complete non-event. In texture, it was just too close to rice pudding, it was completely devoid of flavour and the few slices of asparagus that were buried in its depths were unequal to the mammoth task of making this dish attractive, let alone edible.
Oh, I'm not saying it was impossible to eat it. It was the kind of thing that could be fed to a very poorly invalid who, after many weeks in the sickbed, is at last sitting up and taking a little nourishment. To describe it as bland would be like calling Michael O'Leary confident.
We took our coffee in the form of affogato, which was let down only by the ice cream which came complete with ice crystals. With a generous glass of wine and a bottle of mineral water, the bill came to €64. I don't quite see what all the fuss is about. Dunne & Crescenzi do this sort of thing much better, and have been doing so for years.
Wine list
There are 17 wines, all of them available by the bottle and in 125ml and 250ml doses. My Fiano MandraRossa (€5.95/€7.95/€23.70) is a brisk, fruity white from Sicily. Falasco Soave (€6.95/€9.35/€27.95) tastes a lot less like water than the average Soave and has a honeyed touch to it.
Settesoli Sicani Rosso (€4.75/€6.35/ €18.95) is a rustic and chunky Sicilian red offering decent value. Salice Salentino Riserva from Candido (€6.75/€8.95/€26.75) is bigger and more elegant and a very fair buy at these prices.
Fontanafredda's Briccotondo Barbera (€7.15/€9.95/€29.85) is a delicious Piemontese red. There's also a Prosecco for €7.45 a glass or €29.95 a bottle.