A Co Waterford café serves a perfect cappuccino and good, honest Italian food, writes Tom Doorley
Lest anyone think that I acted on a hot tip-off and travelled for hours to try the grub at Café Molise in Lismore, I should explain that I live about 10 minutes' brisk drive away from this pretty Co Waterford town. A few weeks ago I decided to re-fuel with a mid-morning cappuccino there.
Now, having a cappuccino in Ireland is rarely a memorable experience, but at Café Molise it was distinctly arresting - not just because of the caffeine hit, but because it was one of the best cappuccinos (cappuccini?) I have tasted outside Italy. A true cappuccino should be a breathtakingly strong espresso topped with milk froth. It is a foamy latte. Café Molise's cappuccino was exactly as it should be: a topping of deceptively bland froth giving way to a small depth-charge of shockingly strong coffee. No drinking-chocolate on top, either. This element seemed to have been cunningly dusted on to the crema of the espresso before the milky bit was floated on top.
The patron, Gino Lommano, a Sarf London Italian, is a refreshingly obsessional coffee enthusiast. Forgive me if I have dwelt too long on cappuccino but, frankly, when you get coffee like this, you tend to sit up and pay attention. In my case, I was determined to go back for dinner.
Now, Café Molise, which opened last November, has no pretensions to grandeur. Lismore, thank heaven, is not like that. Do not go there for fashion plates.
Go for honest food, simply dished up, and at very fair prices. The chef, John Ryan, ex-Richmond House in Cappoquin, cooks straightforwardly and more than competently.
Just inside the door are shelves groaning with De Cecco dried pasta, jars of artichokes, capers, olives and what-have-you. Palombini coffee - always a good sign - stands side by side with a small but very adequate selection of rather off-beat Italian wines.
For dinner - served on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 7 p.m. - we kicked off with a shared plate of antipasti: wafers of properly mature Milano salami, large slices of sweet, nutty Parma ham and, most remarkably of all, real bresaola, a form of raw, cured beef. When I say real, I mean that it was proper meat, not the usual kind of extruded horror.
Our other starter, mussels grilled with herby breadcrumbs, was too dry but they were spanking fresh and tasted of the sea, almost in the way that a good oyster does. I guiltily longed for masses of melted butter as lubrication.
Butter, however, featured prominently with the canneloni: perfectly al dente sheets of thin, fresh pasta wrapped around a core of chicken minced with spinach and spiced with nutmeg. This dish was bathed in aintense amalgamation of cream, butter and sharp Parmesan.
Our other main course was simple: the outer leaves of dark green savoy cabbage, simmered in white wine until just tender, were wrapped around a stuffing of minced beef - flavoursome, long-hung beef from McGrath's across the road - which had been spiked with onion and herbs. Served in a rich tomato concassé, this made a rib-sticking but flavoursome dish.
At first sight, the accompanying salads looked rather lacklustre. Whenever I see raw pepper slivers allied to lollorosso, I yearn for a real green salad but I bet such a thing is hard to sell anywhere in rural Ireland. In fact, the peppers were sweet and tender, the lettuce was as fresh as a daisy, the dressing involved plenty of good olive oil and a suspicion of acidity. I ate my words. And most of the salad.
We shared a bowlful of chocolate ice cream for dessert and enlivened ourselves with a couple of bracing espressos for the short journey home. With a bottle of scrummy Barbera di Monferrato (€24.95), not something you see every day, the bill came to €73.80, including service. Café Molise is all about really good but rather basic food; worth a detour if you want real grub but not, thank God, cutting-edge fashion.
Café Molise, Main Street, Lismore, Co Waterford (058-53778)