Restaurants:The smart money's on a place that offers a good deal, writes Tom Doorley
WHEN DIETER BERGMANN owned Il Primo it was, in a sense, more of a club than a restaurant. It had the best Italian wine list in the country and this, combined with good, simple but proper Italian food attracted a very loyal following which included a goodly proportion of the nation's rich, including the odd billionaire.
Thanks to the rare gems on the wine list, it was possible to run up one helluva bill. Legend has it that one customer, celebrating some coup or other, pushed the bottom line well into five figures. But such was the discretion of Bergmann that this incident never made it into the papers.
This makes a contrast with London's Pétrus, when it was part of the Ramsay empire. When a bunch of City lads whooped it up with rare vintages of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Château Latour, the stupendous bill was all over the tabloids.
But times change. The flamboyant Bergmann has changed direction at his latest venture, Riva, in the Dublin Docklands, which appears to be moderately well in tune with the straitened circumstances in which most of us now have to live.
How about this? You can have a glass of any wine that costs less than €50 a bottle. And, better still, they will pour you a full fifth of that bottle. Better again - and this is really unusual - they will charge you a fifth of the cost of the bottle. Perhaps the occasional billionaire will grace Riva's dining room. Billionaires, just like the rest of us, don't like being ripped off.
Plats du jour cost €14.90; risotto and pasta (of various sorts) are €9.90 for a very generous "small" portion or €15.50 for the large; chips . . . sorry "French Fries" and aioli are €2.90. And for brunch you can have grilled bacon, Clonakilty black pudding, Jane Russell's sausages and fried organic eggs for €12.95.
Riva copes well with its identity problem. It's neither French nor Italian nor Irish. It just comes across as a kind of Eurofusion joint with moderate prices, by general Dublin standards.
Not that it always works, of course. A starter of roast mackerel with potato salad and a balsamic reduction was a reasonable idea in theory, but in poor in practice. The mackerel could have been fresher (and would have been better smoked, given that it's unlikely to leap from the water straight into the pan); the spuds in the salad were too waxy so the dressing, which had a hint of mustard in it, didn't adhere; and the drizzled balsamic looked like misplaced gravy and did little to cheer the dish up.
On the other hand, a risotto described as "Arborio, Natural Smoked Haddock, Green Peas, Spinach" was good, if a bit fishier than anticipated. Making even passable risotto in a restaurant is hard to do and this stuff was better than most, the texture between soup and stew, and each grain of rice firm but not gritty.
An 8oz Hereford sirloin steak was nicely chargrilled, had a surprising degree of flavour (I've almost despaired of getting beef with a taste when eating out) and came with proper chips and some slightly over-eggy Béarnaise. At €21.50, in Dublin, it was pretty decent value.
Cod, squid, chorizo and bean stew didn't work. Whatever about squid, which can hack a lot of strong flavours, you are going to lose the essential codness of cod if you start messing around with chorizo. This was not an unpleasant dish and it was a tasty enough bean stew. But the rather modest chunks of grilled cod that sat on top - far too modest for €22.50 - were overwhelmed.
We shared a plate of cheese that was in good condition, and sluiced it down with a glass of excellent Chianti obtained under Riva's commendable wine-by-the-glass scheme which does not penalise you for moderate consumption. We had abandoned a bottle of rather disappointing if famous Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé 2006 (€37.50) just over the half-way mark. With espressos (bear in mind our expensive pink wine) the bill came to €133. Service was very good.
THE SMART MONEY
The plat du jour at €14.95, a glass of Côtes du Rhône and a coffee weighs in at a shade over €20 before service.
WINE CHOICE
Prices start at €19.50, which is unusual, but the list is distinguished by the presence of lots of tip-top Italians, some of them rather rare. Examples include Sammarco 1998 at a reasonable enough €125 and Solaia 1997 at €850. There is also lots of serious Bordeaux, such as the lovely Château Gloria 1989 (€75) and Château Beychevelle 1982 at a surprisingly modest €150. Plenty of excellent Germans and Austrians, including Tyrrell Eitelsbacher Riesling 2000 (€29.50) from the Mosel and Pichler Smaragd Riesling 2006 (€38). Verget's Bourgogne Terroirs de Cote d'Or (€38) is a very pleasing white Burgundy, while Domaine Santa Duc Gigondas (€54) seems a bit steep at the price. Chianti Classico from Felsina costs €39.50.