Restaurant Reviews

Clarions calling: John McKenna has breakfast and lunch in the Clarions: breakfast in the IFSC, lunch in Limerick.

The Clarions are gorgeous. Gorgeous public spaces which float with light and toned-down colours, beautiful bedrooms whose tonal palette is judged just right, with acres of space, smashing bathrooms and a sense of elegant voluptuousness: you feel good just walking into these two hotels, and the architectural chutzpah of the Limerick Clarion is daring and delightful: it is in every sense a landmark building.

Breakfast in Dublin's Clarion offered what has to have been the worst ever scrambled eggs I have ever been served. Their texture had a styrofoam sponginess which was wholly arresting: one taste and your mouth felt shocked by a wholly new food texture, something that was dry, crumbly, albuminated, soggy and distempered: it was like dim sum gone mad, dim sum gone sad. It was extraordinary, extraordinarily tragic.

But the eggs weren't the real tragedy. The real tragedy was that no one cared. The waiter - smartly dressed in black - removed the plate from which little or nothing had been eaten without a murmur, but then I would imagine that he is used to removing full plates of scrambled eggs, if this is the standard offering in the Clarion. The staff at breakfast, indeed, offered a level of disengagement that was, once again, extraordinary, managing to do their job as if the customers weren't there at all! Incredible. But that is not all: this cost no less than E19. The cost of a good lunch.

At the Clarion in Limerick, they are much more focussed. Okay, so you have to wait three minutes before they have time to show you to a table in the dining room that is only one-eighth full, but thereafter they are pleasant, and formal in a rather trepidatious way. The room, once again, is gorgeous, the views are worth a million dollars.

A smoked salmon risotto to start is a decent dish, the fish giving a sharp, smoky saline crispness to the frame of some well-cooked Arborio. A main course of beer-battered cod and chips, with the obligatory mushy peas is, once again, pleasant. But neither dish shows any sort of animus: if you ate these two dishes in a hot shot such as Dublin's Bang restaurant, for instance, you would be talking about them for weeks.

Here, the kind of precision and acuity that Bang revels in was simply absent. The food was decent, but unmemorable. We reckon the food should be centre stage in any restaurant, but we wonder if that is really what the Clarions want: in these hotels, the food is only an element of the offer, which includes great rooms, funky bars, places to work out, places to have conferences. The food seems like an afterthought, which is rather a pity, given the sheer beauty of these dining rooms.

www.clarionhotelifsc.com
www.clarionhotellimerick.com

l'Aubergine

Leslie Williams puts Dublin's L'aubergine under the forensic spotlight, and is impressed by Mark Usshers's fine cooking

Walls are painted soft yellow with Dali-esque Cubist style prints . The lighting was good. Loos were clean but functional. Welcome was efficient but friendly. It was nice to be welcomed by a friendly Irish Maitre d' rather than the usual more formal French one.

Mary Black music plus pan pipes on the sound system (AAAGGGGHHH!) but I stopped noticing once the food arrived.

Breads tasted from the three offered were: plain white bread in a loaf style: bit dense but good flavour fennel and tomato : wonderful crust, full flavour with the fennel dominating

Amuse Bouche:
Morel ravioli with hint of truffle topped by a perfectly cooked prawn on a base of smoked bacon and home pickled cabbage drizzled with sesame oil.

Ravioli was moist with excellent quality pasta and filling - mild but good subtle flavours of morel. Sesame oil dressing dominated the dish a tiny bit but the overall effect was excellent. Pickled cabbage was very interesting and a good foil for the pasta.

Starters:
Twice cooked Roquefort soufflé with rocket salad, hazelnut pesto and mesclun leaves. (€7.90)

Wonderful clean fresh Roquefort taste in light-as-a-feather soufflé with a nice firm crust. Excellent with the pesto and dressing - a nigh on perfect starter.

Grilled Red Mullet served on a bed of escabesh with a roast fish and balsamic vinegarette. (€7.40)

Mullet was perfectly cooked - moist with every scrap of flavour coaxed out of it. Portion was small but exactly enough. The escabesh and sauce etc. was a good background to the fish but not remarkable in itself - as it should be, given the quality of the fish which was the real star.

Mains:
Seared Hake with open ravioli, roast celeriac, turnip and parsnip and a morel cream sauce and garnished with a strip of papparadelle. (€17.60)

Perfectly cooked fish again with buckets of flavour and the focus on the flavour of the fish rather than the sauce and garnish which were a suitable background. Vegetables were excellent . Strip of papparadelle was very good and useful for mopping up the jus. Caitriona mopped her plate leaving only the skin of the fish.

Aged Fillet of Beef with dauphine potatoes, shallot puree, watercress quenelle and black truffle jus and topped with a piece of deep fried prosciutto. (€25)

As the plates arrived I got a wonderful whiff of truffle in the air which promised good things. The dauphine potatoes were micro thin slices with an excellent moist, creamy, rich flavour. Some of the best dauphine potatoes I have ever tasted. Beef was ordered rare and came with a good charcoal crust on the outside and nice and red all the way through. I think I would have liked it taken from the pan about 30 seconds earlier but it was still excellent. There wasn't perhaps as much flavour in the beef as I would have liked but this is the same in all the restaurants in the city it seems to me. The watercress quenelle was moist and herbaceous with good flavours to serve as a background to the beef and the jus. The truffle jus was subtle but distinctive with bits of truffle in the sauce.

Desserts:
Desserts offered were as follows - no menu, just listed off by the waiter...

Raisin and Cinnamon Tart with a hint of ginger

Chocolate Tart Chocolate and Prune Tart

Selection of Ice Creams (made with Derry Clarkes machine!) - pistachio and rum and raisin were on offer

Selection of Cheese

I had the raisin and cinnamon tart which was full flavoured and rich with good moistness. Served with a passion fruit coulis and creme fraiche both of which were of excellent quality.

Now a bum note... Caitriona had the cheese plate which was Cashel Blue, Milleens, Gubbeen and Boille. The cheeses seemed in good condition but it was difficult to tell as they came straight from the fridge. Caitriona pronounced them practically inedible they were so cold and barely touched them.

Bill was €128 euro which we topped up with a 20 euro cash tip. Service charge of 12.5 per cent is only charged for tables of five or more.

Service was confident and knowledgable . In conclusion we had a great time and found the atmosphere warm and relaxed for the most part. I chose dishes like fish and dauphine potatoes as these often go wrong on chefs and they were excellent.

This was confident cooking.

l'Aubergine,
112 Lower Baggot,
Dublin 2
Tel: (01) 6767617
Chef/Prop: Mark Ussher
Restaurant Manager: Jeff Hogan
Sommellier: Natalie Chaubraud

Lunch 12.30-2.30 (Mon-Fri)
Dinner 6.30 - 12.30 (Tuesday to Saturday)