Donnybrook Fair

The swish Donnybrook Fair has added a swish new café. Elizabeth Field checks it out.

The new Donnybrook Fair Café is immensely attractive, with a long, cool interior; dark wood slatted ceiling; minimalist bar adorned simply with bottles; tasteful indirect lighting; and square white tables. These are set with black circular rubber placemats, white linen napkins in cute black paper holders ("EAT UP AND ENJOY!", they say), and intriguing water glasses that are oval-shaped at their bases and round on top. "Very stylish," says my daughter, Joanna, and she is right. It's 8 p.m. on a rainy weeknight, and the place is already three-quarters full with expectant punters waiting to experience Dublin's latest "it" restaurant.

The menu looks promising: pan-seared foie gras, crab spring roll, and marinated plum tomato and basil tartlets are listed among starters. The Mediterranean-influenced modern Irish mains include braised corned beef with mashed potato; breast of corn-fed chicken with grilled asparagus; roast cod with fennel puree; loin of veal with ginger and carrot rosti; and penne arrabiata. Most are priced under €20. There are no less than 17 beers, and 14 wines by the glass, plus 108 wines by the bottle.

We are offered fresh rolls and focaccia bread, accompanied by a well-balanced mix of extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We order a glass of Hellfire Bay Chardonnay (herbal and crisp) and Hellfire Bay Shiraz/Grenache (heavy, flaccid, fruity.)

Bruce begins with a single goat's cheese ravioli served on an elegant rectangular white plate, with an over-salted baby spinach and basil salad. It's prettier than it is filling or satisfying. My warm rabbit salad of rabbit is a winner: a mound of slivered meat in a balsamic vinaigrette is accompanied by larger nuggets of braised rabbit, sweet-crunchy tiny pickled onions and fried-garlic crisps. Joanna's soup of the day is thick and smooth, a carrot soup flavored with a luscious underpinning of licoricey fennel.

The main courses again are artfully presented. But looks are deceiving: Bruce's grilled chicken breast is bland and rubbery, with a generic cream sauce flecked with a few wrinkled dry morels. My sea bass fillets have been properly seared, but the fish is rank almost to the point of being off. It sits on two dispirited oil-saturated sweet potato cakes, and arrives with more over-salted salad greens. We order some potato wedges as consolation; they are hearty, heavy, comforting, and crispy, with a mustardy mayonnaise.

By 9:15 the café is completely full, and service falls down. We wait 20 minutes after ordering our desserts for a distasteful tiramisu parfait - a liquidy, coffee liqueur-laced custard running out of an iced shot glass, accompanied by a beautiful S-shaped ginger tuile - and a trio of Bramley apple desserts: a ramekin of overly sweet apple crisp; a moist brown brandy-soaked cylinder of cake; and an unappetizing, jelly-like apple mousse.

I am sorry to report that so much effort has been placed on the design and aesthetics of the café, with fair to middling attention paid to the food. Unfortunately, this place is a triumph of form over substance.

Donnybrook Fair, 87/89 Morehampton Road, Donnybrook Tel: 01-668 3440

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