Category: Dublin

Red Gingham Tablecloths

Red gingham is a bit of a cliché, the ubiquitous table covering of an unpretentious traditional bistro in provincial France. Or so I thought.

In 2013 I came across Ristorante Tromlin in the hills overlooking the Italian city of Turin.

Torino was the capital of the Kingdom of Savoy, which also ruled Nizza, now better known as the French city of Nice.

I developed a theory that perhaps the red-and-white check entered French culture through this historical back door.

 

Ristorante Tromlin

 

The bistros of Paris were opened by people from the countryside who migrated to the city, and classic dishes from the French regions, notably Beaujolais, Alsace, and (not forgetting) Savoie became staples.

One of my favourites is La Fontaine de Mars, where the menu is firmly rooted in the French Southwest. Jambon de Bayonne is freshly cut on the red enamel slicer that gleams at you as you’re shown to your table, to nibble as you decide whether to choose cassoulet or confit de canard.

 

La Fontaine de Mars

 

Last time we were there we startled our waiter by asking if we could have a green salad with the cheese course.

‘Une salade avec du fromage? Vraiement?(shrugs)

Vive la difference!’

 

(The tablecloths are red and white gingham in my memory, but when I found this photo I realised they are actually pink. Perhaps the effect of a glass too many of their finest Cahors).

 

Then there’s Polidor, the restaurant that time forgot. The blackboard proclaims that ‘we haven’t accepted cheques since 1873’.

Woody Allen chose it as a location for ‘Midnight in Paris’, when the lead character accepts a lift by a stranger’s car which transports him back to the literary heyday of the 1920’s, where he encounters F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the restaurant.

 

‘We haven’t accepted cheques since 1873’

 

 

 

I remembered a visit to Mamma Mia, an Italian restaurant in Dublin.

No mistake this time, the tablecloths are proudly chequered.

 

 

Mamma Mia

 

Maybe there’s something in my theory after all.

Savoie to Paris, by way of Dublin?

I look forward to resuming the necessary research.

“Something for the weekend?” – signs of the (Financial) Times

My preferred newspaper is the Weekend F.T.

It doesn’t come in a plastic wrapper full of unwanted leaflets, advertising stair-lifts and elasticated trousers.

More specifically, the Life & Arts section, and the magazine, which for nearly twenty years have prompted my travel plans, focus on restaurants reviewed by Nick Lander or exhibitions praised by Jackie Wullschlager; or, in an ideal world, both.

 

Last weekend’s well-thumbed Life & Arts

Florence, November 2000

It started in Florence, with the Trattoria Da Ruggero. Nick Lander described it as being a 10 minute walk beyond the Pitti Palace; on a rainy Monday night in November it felt more like half way to Siena.

We were greeted by an open fire in a very Tuscan wood-panelled dining room. There was a griddle on the coals, where they cooked our “Bistecca fiorentina”.

The staff were oblivious to the recent praise in the FT, but an Italian diner at the next table at least recognised the name of the paper.

Da Ruggero is open on Monday evenings, a rarity in Florence. When we visited, it didn’t accept credit cards, and it still doesn’t have a website.

Trattoria Da Ruggero, Via Senese, 89/R, 50124 Firenze FI, Italy

Madrid 2004

The Spanish Portrait: from El Greco to Picasso….

Outside the Museo del Prado

….by way of Velazquez, who created Las Meninas, (The Ladies in Waiting), arguably the world’s greatest painting, and the most enigmatic. Only one drawing survives by Velazquez, unusually he worked directly with paint. Standing in front of it is like becoming a participant, an experience movingly described by Laura Cumming in her book “The Vanishing Man. In Pursuit of Velazquez”

“You are here, you have appeared…. all these people looking back at you…. you have walked into their world and become suddenly as present to them as they are to you”.

The painting has never left the Prado since its return after being removed to safety in the Spanish Civil War; it’s worth the journey to Madrid to see it (and worth waiting for the crowds to take their selfies and move on).

There were 87 paintings in the exhibition, paying court to Las Meninas. I visited twice, spending longer than I have at any art exhibition before or since.

https://www.museodelprado.es/en

Tenerife, April 2014

 

El Burgado

 

I was in need of relaxation and some sunshine. In January, restaurant critic Nick Lander had described the most memorable location of a restaurant that he had visited in the previous year. It was El Burgado, at the northwest tip of Tenerife, where we sat under a canopy of fishing nets, between the mountains and the Atlantic surf, for a lunch of simple seafood and grilled fish. We returned the following evening for dinner….

 

       

El Burgado, Playa La Arena, Buenavista del Norte, Tenerife.

http://restauranteelburgado.com/

Paris, 2016 – 17

Paris has become a regular destination, and in November 2016 we visited the Fondation Louis Vuitton for the first time. It’s an astonishing architectural structure, designed by Frank Gehry. Our visit was prompted by Jackie Wullschlager’s review of “Icons of Modern Art; the Shchukin Collection”.

View of the Bois de Boulogne

Ahead of his time, Sergei Shchukin was a daring patron and collector of French modern art before the Russian Revolution. His collection was nationalised by Lenin in 1918, and in 1948 Stalin denounced it as “bourgeois” and had it removed from public view.

All the great names of early 20th century French art were represented in this exhibition.

Inside the Fondation

 

Dublin, 2017

“Inspiration & Rivalry”: Vermeer and the masters of genre painting in Dublin, the city of perpetual evening.

Dutch genre painters transcended and transformed humble domestic interiors into moments of stillness, bathed in light for eternity.

I was alerted to this exhibition in March 2017 by Jackie Wullschlager. Enthusiasm for a late spring Eurostar to Paris was swiftly blunted by a reference to the queue of 9,000 that formed on the opening day of this major exhibition at the Louvre. By the end of the page this was clearly a “must see”, and after it closed in Paris the exhibition was due to transfer to the National Gallery of Ireland in the summer, then to Washington D.C. in September.

 

Inspiration & Rivalry at the National Gallery of Ireland

 

It seemed a no-brainer to combine visiting with a catch up with a good friend in Dublin (who lives a handy ten minute walk from the gallery) and try out a couple of her regular haunts while we were about it.

Dublin, “where it’s always evening”. See my post http://www.amaroandtwisted.com/category/dublin/

 

 

Next stop: Amsterdam, for High Society

 

FT Life & Arts, 17-18 March 2018

 

High Society at the Rijksmuseum: a major exhibition of full length portraits by great artists: Rembrandt, Velazquez, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Lawrence, Sargent, Manet and Munch.

“The guests are dressed to kill and have travelled far”.

Jackie Wullschlager has done it again. I’ve booked my ticket.

And a table at Rijks, the restaurant of the Rijksmuseum, which as far as possible uses ingredients from Dutch soil.

Rijks was reviewed by Nick Lander when it opened in 2015, and we visited during a trip to Amsterdam for the last must-see exhibition there, Late Rembrandt. That memorable visit was an opportunity to raise a glass to both reviewers.

 

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/high-society – to June 3.

www.rijksrestaurant.nl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch, dinner and a lost afternoon in Dublin

Ely wine bar

“You say Ely, I say Ely”   

 

The award winning Ely Wine Bar (pronounced Eli in Dublin, as in Eli Wallach, not Ely as in Ely Cathedral. Hope that helps). It’s on Ely Place, so it’s easy to find. The atmosphere in the basement is Gentlemens’ Club meets New York Steakhouse. (Note to self: did New York borrow the steakhouse from Dublin?).

It’s always evening here.

Downstairs at the Ely

The welcome is as friendly and good humoured as you might expect, and there’s a comprehensive wine list, especially strong on champagne and sherry. The soundtrack is 1980’s disco funk.

They’re justly proud of the provenance of their meat: “Beef and pork from our family farm in The Burren, Co Clare”.

We started with pulled ham hock and Tonsbridge Burrata from Irish buffalo milk, its richness balanced by bitter fruit flavours on the plate: jam, peach, orange.

The other starter was superb: picked white crabmeat with aioli, watercress, herring roe and anchovy, and a good, salty grilled focaccia.

Mains were Papardelle from the “daily specials”, with chestnut mushrooms, oxtail and spinach. Served with gremolata (parsley, garlic and lemon zest) rather than Parmesan, which lifted it – savoury not cheesy.

Fried cod fillet, another impressive special, came with beets, broad beans, samphire, parsnip (puree and crisps), anchovy.

 

http://www.elywinebar.ie/

Ely Wine Bar, 22 Ely Place, Dublin 2

Doheny & Nesbitts

After lunch seemed the appropriate moment for a quiet Guinness (a pint is “a Guinness”, a half is “a glass of Guinness”). We repaired to Doheny & Nesbitts, a deservedly famous Dublin institution. You sit in a booth and they bring the stout to your table. It’s always evening here too.

Doheny & Nesbitts at 4 o’clock in the afternoon – was the floor sloping, or was it just me? 

http://www.dohenyandnesbitts.ie/

Doheny & Nesbitts, 5 Baggot Street Lower, Dublin 2

Mamma Mia – Here I go again….

All the signs were wrong. The name, the red exterior, the red and white checked tablecloths, the pizza menu – from the outside you’d think this was what New Yorkers call “just another red sauce joint”.

Our friend is a regular, so we went later for dinner. It was buzzing and the food smelled great. There’s a photo on the wall of the owner with Ireland’s president “Little Michael” (or Michael D) Higgins, who lives round the corner and loves the place. It’s tiny, maybe 30 covers.

We shared garlic bruschetta and mixed Antipasti – salumi, Gorgonzola both creamy and piccante, Scamorza (a type of smoked mozzarella), good olives, juicy sweet chillis, balsamic onions.

Then Spaghetti Carbonara with deeply flavoured, smoky guanciale (cured pig cheek, essential in an authentic carbonara), and cheese; lots of cheese. Rigatoni Amatriciana: tick. No, make that double tick; wonderfully meaty depth of flavour. Seafood Linguine – no frozen mix here, the shellfish was fresh and tasted of the sea. Lovely.

All the ingredients at Mamma Mia are top quality, well chosen, authentic, and properly cooked. Their tomatoes are great. The wine list is simple and short; we drank a soft, rounded Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and a juicy, golden Trebbiano / Grecchetto from Umbria.

You’d expect the husband and wife owners to be Italian, like our lovely waiter Filippo and all the staff, but according to our friend, they’re both “Dubs”.

“Mamma Mia, does it show again? My my, how can I resist ya?”

(Mercifully there is no Abba soundtrack)

http://mammamiad2.ie/

2 Gratton Street, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2

 

Mamma Mia at night – did Edward Hopper eat here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawks