“The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.” – Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (Act II)
I have a friend who has (for many years now) cultivated a habit of visiting restaurants soon after I’ve reviewed them (positively) so that he can subsequently recount in grave detail how awful his experience of the place was. Every time. Without exception dishes are either ‘sent back’ or taken home ‘for the dogs’. If the guy didn’t have bad (dining) luck he’d have no luck at all. I don’t take the provocation personally because I understand that these episodes are actually emotionally inarticulate attempts on his part to draw closer to me. He’s the awkward boy pulling the pretty girl’s hair in the playground. (I’m the pretty girl in this). My equanimity springs also from the deeply held contention that criticism is always more concerned with interpretation than judgement. I’m not a cheerleader, I call the game as I see it. I don’t approach these pieces as if compiling a guide. There would be far fewer opportunities for the kinds of excursus that I indulge in.
Not considering myself to be in the recommendation business doesn’t mean that I’m not on the receiving end though – Osteria Lucio is some advice that I’ve passed on for too long it seems. The situation of the restaurant could be the reason, it seems almost wilfully obscure, pulling off the trick of seeming simultaneously nearby and quite out of the way. It takes, I imagine a particular type to open under a railway arch on a dead-end street with virtually no footfall. Chef-patron Ross Lewis is apparently one such. The handsome, casual spot that he operates with chef (and friend) Luciano Tona is about to celebrate a decade of service in what must be one of the quietest fanfares in Dublin dining.
He opened the place while still helming the kitchen in Chapter One as an escape one assumes from the institutional anxiety of fine dining. Having stepped aside for the savant Viljanen (whose food stopped me in my tracks a few weeks back) in that kitchen he’s now fully hands-on in this one. It must have felt like quitting Radiohead to join The Eagles. Like I said, Osteria Lucio is an attractive place to eat, from the high-ceilinged bar with its wood-burning oven to the extremely pleasing vaulted tunnel to the rear.
On a squally Thursday night the place is filled with smiling folks at their ease in pools of amber light. Our third is in the early stages of a mandated gluten avoidance journey which is lamentable but when she reveals that she has also been deemed allergic to shellfish I immediately think aloud – just like Michael Winner back in the day! When she replies casually that he was a dear friend during her time in London my mind turns to shash. For the uninitiated, Winner was a well-to-do flâneur who sometimes directed movies in the 70s & 80s (often featuring ‘Charlie’ Bronson ‘wasting’ people) but who also slummed it as a restaurant critic back in the distant heyday of, I believe, The Sunday Times. His ‘Winner’s Dinners’ pieces still have a place in my heart (and in my prose). While still reeling at having discovered such a connection, my wife helpfully suggests that I had been made aware of it years ago, forgotten it and was now enjoying a kind of rediscovery. Even so.
You’ll want to start by breaking some bread – the sourdough focaccia is about as good as it gets and barely needs the excellent tapenade and eggplant caviale that comes alongside. There’s good oil on the table. Don’t be a hero with those olives – pay heed to the al forno part of the menu description. They arrive as if shot from the very bowels of Vulcan’s forge. I very much enjoyed the Spiedino de Pollo from the list of antipasti – a skewer of succulent, n’duja spiced chicken cooked in that fragrant oven with thick slices of oyster mushroom and lashed with stripes of tart lemon aioli. Another indication of the singular mindset that guides this place is that they eighty-sixed the pizza from their menu quite recently to free up the oven for other things.
Now you might have noticed that there’s a lot of pizza around town. That’s because (in relative terms) the margins are thicker than the cornicione on your last margherita and eminently more satisfying. You are not opening a pizza place to earn a crust, you’re doing it to make some serious dough. These guys on the other hand essentially closed one to do something more interesting. It seems though that not everyone got the memo about the place going senza una pizza. At the next table a man is overheard snapping at the woman opposite – “If you wanted pizza you could have gone to Milano.” I imagine a thought bubble above her head – “If I’d known you were a dickhead I wouldn’t have had your children.” If folks used to flock here for the pizza, the pastas should probably be the draw now.
Tagliatelle con Asparagi brings a tangle of ribboned noodles bound together with shavings of white asparagus and punctuated with the green pop of those peas and bolstered with the broad savouriness of prosciutto and aged parmigiano. You’ll struggle to find better in one of those places that has merch. Better still is the Ragu Napoletana al Forno. If you are unfamiliar with gnocchi alla romana then these are quite the education. Rather than the gummy little dumplings you may have tired of these resemble scallop-sized polenta soufflés. They arrive in a sizzling skillet jostling with a mob of tender veal meatballs, hunks of braised sausage and ribbons of pork rib meat. All is bound together with a rich tomato sauce – the Sunday gravy of Italian-American dreams. I’d like to think that this is the sauce that Ray Liotta was exhorting his brother to keep stirring before he had to go unload the guns that Jimmy didn’t want in Goodfellas. It’s an outstanding dish and one that would appeal to both wife and goomar. This alone is worth the visit.
A textbook reading of Veal Saltimbocca is the standout from the secondi. You could give the sole of a Gucci loafer the brown-butter, lemon and caper treatment and still find takers but this is exactly as you should expect – sharp and softly saline with a tender and yielding escalope. The green salad that comes alongside is better than it needs to be, lively with herbs and leaves that taste of themselves. After all the lazy elation the Lamb Shoulder is something of a downer. The hunks of (slightly dry) meat are just generally uncooperative and there’s a sweet component (a glaze maybe) that seems a little too forceful. The idea of live-fire roasted meat raises serious expectations for me and this didn’t meet them. A friend tells me that the suckling pig was no better but I wouldn’t take his word for it.
Service is Italian but never oleaginous. In point of fact, the genial and charming man who runs the floor happens to be Portuguese. Science now understands that Italian-ness is known to be very catching and spread primarily through exposure to food and drink (although sex and leather goods have also been known to accelerate the condition). Sniff if you wish but the phenomenon is real – If I spend twenty minutes in the company of grappa I find myself compulsively muttering the phrase ‘che cazzo’ under my breath. Suffice to say that service is warm and accommodating throughout. Everybody knows what they are doing, serving and why you are here. The all-Italian wine list is not so long as to bore or intimidate but just concise enough to encourage questions about some styles or producers you might not be familiar with. Lewis himself comes out to shoot the breeze after service and muses at one point that he reckons that he’s maybe done a million covers in his time. That’s a serious number. I’ll wish him Cent’Anni more.
Just one more thing – I believe the last time I was around these parts eating purposefully (for a purpose other than sustenance) I ended up gushing about a certain burger served in the bar of a certain restaurant. I’m certain it was Allta Bar actually. It really was something. Imagine my surprise then, upon returning with some family, at being served a round of dense, grey under seasoned pucks, scarcely recognisable from the paragons of the form that I had described. Service too had the feeling of a desultory shrug, of a place spooling down to a standstill. There’s been talk of a pivot to a seafood concept in this space, perhaps the kitchen can muster up a little enthusiasm (and consistency) this time around. I’d certainly recommend that they do.**
**Editor’s Note: Allta Bar ceased serving food prior to publication.
Words: Conor Stevens
Photographs: Killian Broderick
The Malting Tower
Grand Canal Quay
Dublin 2
