Bang Café

John McKenna takes the low banquette in Bang Café.

Bang is right.

Bang on target with the food.
Bang on target with the hair colouring (the boys on the floor do look well, don't they?).
Bang on target with a hip crowd who enjoy this svelte space on Merrion Row in the centre of Dublin.
Bang has had its ups and downs since it opened a couple of years back, with early promise receding into an annoying inconsistency.
But the latest evidence is that Bang is back with a. well, sorry, but with a bang.

Lorcan Gribbin and his team offer the sort of eclectic menu that can make your heart sink when you open the folder. Mexican griddled chicken salad. Bangers and mash. Pan-fried squid. Danish open sandwich. Tomato, goat's cheese and asparagus tart (who in their right mind, you ask yourself, would have that trio of ingredients on the menu in February?!). But, you have to trust them, so the efficient waitress takes your order as the room fill up, the food arrives and. bang! (there it is again).

This is sharp cooking, right down to the details, such as an excellent collation of salad leaves served with shrimp spring rolls, or the delicate-as-petals baby spinach leaves served with plum tomatoes and crispy prosciuttio (memo to Irish kitchens; fellas, can we lose the crispy Serranos, Parmas and prosciuttios, please. We're only into February and wherever we eat, the crispy ham is already there, waiting for us. Enough already).

Even better are the mains; massively spot-on roast brill is cooked to perfection, and roasted shallots and salsify are ace. Chicken chasseur is fab: crisp pieces of chicken from wing and thigh are just right, the mushroom and red winey sauce is great, the mash as light as a fluttering eyelash. It may be an old 1960's cordon bleu classic, but chasseur is up-to-the-minute in the Bang version, comfort food with a cool edge.

Food this good finds its audience quickly, and the room was full of happy lunchtime eaters, though if we are permitted a complaint it is that the banquette in the dining room is actually too low for the table height: if you are having a power lunch, put the victim on the banquette whilst you tower over them on the chair and get whatever it is you want from them.

Otherwise, Bang Bang.

Bang Café,
11 Merrion Row,
Dublin 2
tel: (01) 676 0898
www.bangrestaurant.com

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