I’ll start with an apology for reviewing The Commons at MoLI (Museum of Literature Ireland) so soon after its opening. It’s not my usual modus operandi, but I needed to get a review visit done on a Monday and the options were limited. Needs must and all that.
I have a soft spot for The Commons of old, and I like this new iteration. Wikipedia tells me that The Commons I remember operated between 1989 and 2003, and that it held a Michelin star between 1994 and 1997 and again in 2002. During a period when there were not very many restaurants in the capital to get excited about, a visit to The Commons was something special.
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I’m also a tad sentimental about the lovely Iveagh Gardens, onto which Newman House backs, where I had my wedding reception in a marquee that looked as if its most recent booking had been at some class of agricultural event, but was saved by a yellow and white striped nylon lining left over from the Pope’s visit a decade earlier.
The 2019 version of The Commons is a new venture for Peaches and Domini Kemp, the sisters behind outlets such as Itsa Bagel and the café at IMMA. It’s located in the basement of Newman House and opens out onto a terraced patio that leads to the public gardens behind.
For the time being, it’s a daytime-only offering; there will be evening service in the future. We visited for lunch. The space is attractive, the furniture stylish and the artwork (of which more later) outstanding. But it’s all hard surfaces – there has been no attempt at softening – and the noise is cacophonous, with the clatter of plates and cutlery ricocheting around the room.
The menu lists dishes without indicating whether they are starters, mains or something in between; no one of the four that we tried would have made a lunch in itself other than for a person with a small appetite.
A fish special of Burren Smokehouse smoked salmon with two small fermented-potato-bread scones and horseradish crème fraiche, topped with (Goatsbridge?) trout caviar, is an excellent plate, but butternut squash soup is bland and under-seasoned, enlivened only by the tang of a feta cream topping and a scattering of toasted sunflower seeds. The soda bread is unremarkable, the house-made butter a delight.
A dish of roast heritage and Iona carrots with organic buttermilk, dill and hazelnut dukkah, sounding so modest and unassuming, is perfection – balanced, nuanced, full of texture and flavour. Jim Brady’s braised beef with Gorgonzola and pickled mustard greens in a blaa is tasty but stingy, with not enough beef and the merest smear of cheese – not enough to satisfy Leopold Bloom, that’s for sure.
We share a slice of dense, moist chocolate and Guinness cake; the visual gag of the layer of vanilla cream icing a nod to Flann O’Brien’s pint of plain, which features in one of the dozen fine art pieces on the walls commissioned from photographer Trevor Hart, stylist Eleanor Harpur and art director Nicky Hooper. Others are inspired by Seamus Heaney’s Oysters, the batter-making experiment in the Rabbitte family’s kitchen in Roddy Doyle’s The Van, the banquet scene from James Joyce’s The Dead and Bloom’s kidney breakfast in Ulysses.
Service is of the curate’s egg school – good in parts. The young woman who looks after our table is great, but there’s a touch of brusqueness from another who is having to deal with tech problems. (A promise to email a receipt when none is available at the till had not been delivered upon three days later.) Our bill comes to €53.30; there’s no charge for still and sparkling water. This seems on the bullish side given the size of the portions, which are by no means substantial, other than the soup.
My score takes into account that these are early days and that there are wrinkles to be ironed out. I’m sure this will happen over the coming weeks.
THE RATING
8/10 food
8/10 ambience
7/10 value
23/30
ON A BUDGET
Soup of the day with soda bread and organic house-made butter is €7.50.
ON A BLOW OUT
Smoked salmon followed by spiced beef with root vegetables and treacle tart with cream will cost €65.80 for two before drinks or service.
THE HIGH POINT
The heritage carrot dish and the gorgeous art pieces by Trevor Hart and Eleanor Harpur.
THE LOW POINT
The acoustics need work.
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