Taking a little break from my tour of the provinces, I arrive in Dublin and inhale the heady scent of urban sophistication. This appears to involve people talking about Gary Rhodes's new Dublin restaurant - specifically, saying it's in the wrong part of town.
Some claim not to know where Capel Street is; others - mainly lawyers - can't get away with this and confine themselves to saying that RhodesD7 is on the wrong part of Capel Street. Their partners chime in and say they wouldn't fancy walking there at night.
I don't know how much Mr Rhodes has to do with this new establishment that combines his name with one of the city's less fashionable postcodes, but he seems to have set tongues wagging.
It wouldn't be the same if Eamonn O'Reilly, Derry Clarke or Kevin Thornton opened in Dublin 7. But when a British celebrity chef opens a joint on Capel Street a whole lot of Dubs start to claim the poor man was badly advised.
I ventured to these uncharted regions on a very warm Monday for lunch and found myself exchanging recipes for raw tomato pasta sauce with the companion - very southside, now I come to think of it.
Having summoned the taste of my home-grown, old-fashioned tomatoes out of the ether, so to speak, I was shocked to find myself eating an exceptional slice of the same fruit in my starter. The little tomato salad, dressed with finely chopped chives, that appeared beneath a slice of smoked haddock was outstandingly tasty. Admittedly, its excellence was thrown into sharp relief by the fact that the average tomato served in this country has as much taste as Jordan.
The Welsh rarebit topping for the fish was a proper, traditional emulsion of cheese, beer and mustard, and, together, they made a simple but very successful starter, clearly in the Rhodes tradition. But perhaps a bit cheekily priced at €13.50? This is not a fancy restaurant. It's clearly meant to be down to earth, with a menu featuring chicken and chips, fish and chips, steak, eggs Benedict and what have you.
My second starter - I tend to prefer starters to mains, odd as it may seem - was a confused duck rillette pâté. Was it a rillette or a pâté? Never mind. I was prepared to risk it, but I don't like liver, and the P-word made me anxious. So I asked. The answer came back that it was free of offal but contained "30 to 40 per cent pork". As little as that? It tasted as much of duck as a particularly porcine pork chop. And, blow me down, but it was a rillette pâté - in other words, a complete invention.
Without getting too technical, rillettes are made by tearing shreds of very well-cooked meat apart with a couple of forks; pâtés aren't. And this stuff appeared to be very well-cooked meat that had been put into a blender and whizzed. All this I can forgive, but it needed a lot more salt and more fat, even a token mini-layer on top.
The companion's cream of celery soup with "Cashel Blue toasts" was very good: the soup was pure essence of celery, and the toasts proved once again that blue cheese works especially well with this vegetable. I don't think the addition of English mustard was particularly helpful, however.
His main course of fish and chips - breaded, deep-fried fillets of plaice - was perfectly decent. The fish was not overdone, but there seemed to be more coating than fish. The chips were thick and hand-cut, and the "creme fraiche tartar" was not something you get between your teeth but a reasonable variation on sauce tartare. It cost €17.95, which would appear to represent a healthy profit margin.
"Iced bread and butter pudding parfait with raison [sic] syrup and sweet Melba toast" had no raison d'etre other than sounding unusual. It was ice cream on a layer of squashed sliced pan. The Melba toast didn't penetrate my consciousness. "Marshmallow meringue with summer fruits and ice cream" was pavlova.
A clever layout disguises the fact that this is a very big restaurant; despite a charming front-of-house team, it seems to lack soul. And I can't help thinking that the prices are just a bit too high.
The decor is a bit weird, too, eschewing the minimalist cool of Rhodes's other places in favour of a vaguely frumpish neutrality. "Rather PV Doyle," said the architect who lunched with me. An unwillingness to frighten the horses is not what's needed with a venture like this. RhodesD7 seems just too timid.
With mineral water, a bottle of rosé, coffee and two glasses of dessert wine, the bill just exceeded €100, before service.
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Wine Choice
RhodesD7's conservative wine list, which offers some keen value, could have been chosen by committee. Funky it ain't. However, Ésprit de Nijinksy (€18.50), from Provence, is a great buy, and Telmo Rodriguez's red Gazur (€23.50) and white Baso (€20) are sound wines at fair prices. At the higher end, Quiot's fleshy Châteauneuf 2004 (€44) is a lovely, easy wine, and Daniel Rion's Bourgogne Pinot Noir (€34) is serious stuff even if it seems dear at first sight. Prosecco for €32 is a bit steep, and I'm not sure anyone with working taste buds would willingly spend €8.50 on a glass of Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise. All the wines are available by the glass, ranging from €4 for Undurraga Sauvignon Blanc (don't, would be my advice) to €15.50 for the lovely Gosset NV Champagne.