If you have even a passing familiarity with The Liberties you’ll be aware of Noel’s Deli. If not it’s like a rawer, realer, Stoneybatter. Noel’s is not really a deli although you could grab some billy roll and batch and knock yourself up a sandwich if you needed one. It functions as a sort of archive and communications hub for the neighbourhood – if you want to know what the story is, Noel’s is where it’s at. It has also become a kind of drop-in centre for dogs who know that they’re guaranteed treats if they drag their leash-holders over the threshold. You wouldn’t get that in Grano. Anyhow, I was told of a recent conversation in the shop that centred around someone’s visit to a fancy restaurant – the gist being that such and such had taken their Nanny (not in the Tory sense) to Variety Jones for a slap-up feed to celebrate something or other. It was apparently a great success.
What interested me though was that the talk didn’t revolve around the (substantial) cost but rather on how unbelievable it was that you could go to a joint like this and not get to order whatever you wanted. I quite agree with them. I’ve long since lost my taste for tasting menus. I’d been in to witness the second coming of that restaurant about a month prior so thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to review Bastible instead, another Michelin-starred place on the fringes of the city masquerading as a neighbourhood restaurant. This is not one of my DoubleTake™ pieces but I might refer to the one while I talk about the other.
I pick my dinner-date up from her Tai Chi class (uh huh) around Aungier St and we wend our way south in the late evening sun, blissed out for a few blocks. On a grey November night you could feel differently about some of these streets. As we hang a right onto Harrington St I feel the familiar need to again remind my companion that I once lived (intermittently) in a flat just doors from our destination. I couldn’t say that I lived well. The snap of mousetraps soundtracked the rodent jamborees playing out beyond the bedroom door. If memory serves, the site now occupied by Bastible was once a greasy spoon that I’d frequent. How times have changed.
Opened by Barry Fitzgerald and Claire-Marie Thomas a decade ago it has long been a by-word for the kind of modern, high-minded, seasonal cooking that emerged from Scandinavia a decade before that. Former head chef (and contributor to this magazine) Cúán Green spent time at that movement’s Holy Sepulchre, Noma in Copenhagen. The attention to detail persists but not perhaps the level of devotion to foraging and ferments. You could describe the room as spare but that doesn’t quite capture it.
We’re talking almost Lutheran levels of austerity. Natural tones abound. I think one of the wheaten shades is a Farrow & Ball one called ‘hairshirt’. The seating feels penitential. You’ll welcome the numbness that sets in around the sixth course but find no such respite from the pitiless glare of the lighting. Offer it up. These mortifications are presumably designed to encourage diners to focus upon the food. It could probably do so on its own.
There are nine courses to contend with so I’m not going to give you chapter and verse. That would be almost as exhausting as eating them. Too much of a good thing. I know why tasting menus make sense for kitchens in terms of waste and cost but I’ll carp nevertheless. The seeded sourdough loaf that begins the solemn service, proud upon its plate tells you everything that you need to know about the place. When broken it issues a warm sigh of steam and a scent that some find sacred. The cultured butter that comes with it, if you closed your eyes, could pass for reblochon. It’s got more culture than an opera critic.
A stridently different Beef Tartare finds coarsely chopped meat imbued with the flavours of XO Sauce and completely enveloped with a horseradish foam. I’ll identify the mysteriously savoury green dusting later. The dish is spicy, tart and memorable.
Atlantic Squid ‘Matelote’ is sliced to fine ribbons and bathed in that Alsatian red-wine sauce often served with eel. I note that Mickael Vilijanen paired the two on a recent tasting menu so perhaps this is a tip of the hat. It’s a pleasingly sour standout. There’s a tendency toward astringency in the flavour profiles, sharpnesses that pinch to hold your attention.
The Cod with peas and bok choy is a master-class in fish cookery, Spring in excelsis. Large Legos of rose-pink lamb are napped with a glossy ‘gravy’ redolent of musky lovage. Soubise makes an appearance at one point. I could go on but you get the point.
‘Catholic’ Variety Jones feels like it wants you to have a good time, ‘Protestant’ Bastible wants you to understand how good the food is – and the cooking here is of the highest order. It’s inventive without being showy, the technical stuff is in the service of flavour. It’s deeply sincere – the word I keep coming back to is earnest. It feels Japanese in that sense.
Chef Killian Walsh leads a very talented team in one of the calmest kitchens you’ll witness. The Michelin accolade (awarded 3 years ago) is well kept. At €105 per person this counts as excellent value at this level. Another €80 buys you some interesting wine pairings but don’t feel obliged. Service is casual but heavy on detail, as if a stranger in the dog-park just engaged you in a conversation about dehydrated samphire.
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about folks flocking to join the Catholic church, if not quite in droves then in notable dribs and drabs. Some are perhaps lost souls, some seem to think that it’s cool, others I suspect seek to misuse doctrine to validate their unchristian hatreds, donning a supposed moralism to cover up an ethical emptiness. Few seem to consider the thornier issues that should be addressed to the head of the church. As an apostate the trend shouldn’t rankle with me as much as it does. I don’t have any sin in the game. Pope’s observation comes to mind. “When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil’s leavings”. For my American readers – that’s Alexander Pope, not the new Chi-town Bishop of Rome. Whatever. Good luck to them.
Variety Jones and Bastible both generate fervent followings and that’s great. I’m not here to convert or evangelise – in the spirit of ecumenism let’s say that they are both great restaurants, albeit tonally different ones. One slouches in a relatable way while the other adopts a sterner bearing. They interpret the restaurant text differently and long may that last. You’ll see stars at both but not quite the heavens beyond, whatever your creed.
Words: Conor Stevens
Photographs: Killian Broderick
111 South Circular Rd,
Dublin 8
