I suppose you could regard this as the opening piece of an occasional series entitled – So what’s the deal with that place? I’m talking about a particular type of casual Dublin restaurant whose endurance seems to defy logic or reason, places whose very existence might be questioned when their names are invoked. “I distinctly remember that place closing down ten years ago” they’ll say. It should be noted that people only ever use the phrase ‘distinctly remember’ when the recollection is a little fuzzy. It’s like saying ‘ask anyone’ when you fabricate a fact to bolster a failing argument. See also – ‘know for a fact’.
I’ll put my hand up, I am not immune, I distinctly remember The Gotham Café closing about ten years ago. I can even unclearly recall the many heartfelt tributes from quasi-notable Dubliners. Pat’s Hat composed a poetical lament, the salt-of-the-earth type flower-sellers from down at the vibe-for-Philo statue wept openly while laying a wreath in the doorway. Turns out though that the much-liked institution remains in rude health, doing the thing it’s been doing since the twentieth century. Huh. This sort of collective mis-remembering is known as The Mandela Effect – a phenomenon that I had previously thought confected by the writer’s room on an episode of The X-Files. Nope. It’s a thing. Is The Gig’s Place still open? The Manhattan? Rough wine and greasy fry-ups at 4am of a Thursday, did that happen? F**k knows.
Pacino’s does exist though and has verifiably been toughing it out on Suffolk St for the guts of thirty years. As the website points out it is ‘ideally positioned’ in the heart of Dublin’s retail and social district’. It also stresses the restaurant’s proximity to ‘Dublin’s historic Molly Malone Statue’. You could slip out between courses to snap one of those grope-selfies that so delight visiting dullards. While I’m on the subject – the fact that she may or may not have been a brasser is neither here nor there. In fact – if there were any certainty that she was peddling more than shellfish then surely it wouldn’t be inappropriate to charge oafish tourists a few bob for copping a feel. I might pitch that to DCC.
This place has just been hiding in plain sight on Suffolk St – not so much beneath my interest as existing in an adjacency completely beyond it. It’s unclear whether the name refers to Al or just a regular family of Pacinos who settled in Templeogue, or somewhere like that. On a dank midweek night we arrive to a genuine welcome and everyone seems to be having a swell time. There are couples of numerous configurations, tables of tourists (many American) and groups of gal-pals. With the exposed brick and sympathetic lighting it’s not an unpleasant place to be and my negroni is as good as it needs to be for thirteen bucks.
We enjoy some good meatballs – they’re not A Fianco good but the sauce is vibrant and the polpette are just tender enough. They come with a piece of garlic bread that looked so 1989 that it almost brought a tear to my eye. That was good too. There’s Bruschetta and Crostini and Arancini, you know the drill. You could continue the Molly Malone thing with a plate of Linguine with shells if you like but we split some Tagliatelle with a white lamb and artichoke ragu and that eats well too. The pasta was a little overcooked but what are you gonna do?
The namesake pizza (Pacino’s) was better still – a white base with Fior di Latte, Fontina, Porcinis and sausage. I could see it going in and out of the gas-fired oven, they know what they’re doing. The Caponata needs work. My date returns from the bathroom with the news that there’s a ‘speakeasy’ in the basement. It’s called The Blind Pig and it’s the most 2012 thing ever. There are cocktails and live music and it’s perfectly legal to serve spirituous liquor in 2025.
This is holiday Italian food rather than Italian holiday food and there’s nothing at all wrong with it. Service is warm and solicitous throughout. They could probably lean harder into the NY red-sauce joint/Sunday gravy thing and start slinging Fettucini Alfredo and gabbagoul etc but it looks as if they’re doing just fine. It’s a safe space for incurious palates that offers good value and that’s just jake, as they used to say during prohibition.
Like I said, the Gotham Café has been doing its thing now on South Anne St since 1993 (!) so how is it that I have never once darkened its doorway, at least before I imagined its faux-closure? This joint is an institution and you can feel why as soon as you sit down. I could spend an afternoon just considering the lovingly curated Rolling Stone covers that festoon the walls. Sean Penn – The new James Dean? asks one over an image of an impossibly young (pre-Madonna) Penn.
I can’t answer the question – maybe I’ll search out the article online for more context when I retire, at 80. Always had a soft spot for Penn though and was just thinking recently (after a screening of One Battle After Another) that he now seems to be composed of the same gnarled but malleable substance as Iggy Pop. Like a Stretch Armstrong® that has been overstretched by wanton boys and is no longer able to reassume his original form. I will never forgive the uncle who fatally maimed mine with a Rothman’s burn over the festive season of 1981. And perhaps that’s the very point of Gotham – a place where you can duck in, take a beat and let your mind wander.
You’re not here to try the new thing or to photograph your food, you’re here to be fed well by friendly folks before you get on with whatever your it is. This is the kind of place that proudly touts the fact that they make their own french fries every day. Good for them, better for you. Split a pizza with someone whose company you enjoy. The sandwiches are generous and filled with good stuff. Do brunch!
Service is of the kind that treats everybody like a regular, so much so that you might leave deciding to become one. This is the most genuinely New Yorkish thing about it – it functions and feels like a diner. Not one of the new done-over, tarted up ones, I’m thinking of a spot like The Remedy on Houston St, the last such place that I patronised. Riggins had a Montecristo, I think I had some kind of eggs.
The point is that these are places that all kinds of folks can use in all kinds of ways – to feed, fraternise, hang out. Gotham is like that – a place at the heart of the city that you can use. Long may it last.
Words: Conor Stevens
Photographs: Killian Broderick
18 Suffolk St, Dublin 2
8 South Anne St, Dublin 2
