Wolfe's - Restaurant Review
Thursday 19 August 2010
The foodie buzz words are organic, local, seasonal, and artisan produce, and that is all very admirable, but it all depends on what you do with it! Wolfe’s Wine & Food Store is on Capel Street. The ground floor café has a deli counter with the usual sandwich and salad offerings, and to the rere, beyond the kitchen, is an courtyard area. These are very old houses and the layout is all slightly higgledy piggledy. We were booked into the upstairs restaurant for lunch, accessed through a door by the deli counter out into a hall, with a big ladder thrown down at the other end, and up a newly carpeted grey staircase. The smaller room to the rear is a bar, whilst the main room overlooks Capel Street. Old floor boards are retained whilst walls, hung with artistic photos on exhibit, are smart grey. Black chandeliers hang over simple tables and there appeared to be aspirations, but things like a swaith of electrical cables running across the floor in front of the fireplace, and dippy uneven floor outside the loo, smacked of the Chuckle Brothers being still on site.
The Head Chef has a provenance and, paired with a good list of artisan suppliers on the website, it sounded promising. Our pleasant Czekoslovakian waiter pointed out that a free bottle of house wine went with three courses. Starters were €6/€9. Free range chicken and wild mushroom terrine (€7) proved two chunky tranches with a big smear of carrot puree and a sprinkling of fresh herbs. The terrine was nice but, apart from colour, the carrot puree brought nothing to the party flavour wise. My pleasant simple bowl of herby mixed leaves (€6.90) on a ‘brush’ of lemon crème fraiche was tossed with strips of smoked salmon and brown shrimps.
Mains were €9.50/€17.40. I ordered “Irish Lough Erne Texal Rump of Lamb (€17.40), garlic mash, peas La Francaise, Lamb Jus”. The waiter asked how I would like it cooked and I replied “pink”. Brendan chose “Rack of Crowes Free Range Pork, wholegrain mustard mash, pork jus (€16).” This is where things really took a nosedive. They say you eat with your eyes – and if that is so we were turned off. Peas a la Francaise are generally a lovely light frothy melange of peas, sugar, butter, spring onions, a few lettuce leaves. What faced me was a big pasta bowl swimming with peas and onion slices in a sea of brown demi-glaze – think Bisto colour – in the middle sat a pile of mash and a frostbite like very dry exteriored rump of not pink lamb. Brendan’s pork, smeared with more brown sauce, was doorstep style , retaining the thick layer of skin to prove its pedigree, and tough. I ate two small pieces of lamb and tasted the “La Francaise” peas. Ghastly. On removing the clearly uneaten plates, the waiter did enquire. I told him the lamb was not pink, and that we expected something more refined.
We soldiered on with the 3 course ‘deal’. Banana Fritters (€7) with caramel icecream fine, whilst my selection of five Irish Artisan Cheeses (€10) looked tired. The Sicilian Borgo Sele Rosso Nero D’Avola (normally €15) was grand.
We were charged full price and our bill for lunch was €63.30 sans service. We could have had a €25 lunch in Michelin starred L’Ecrivain or Thornton’s – someone needs to put their thinking cap on at Wolfe’s. Also, beside us, a visiting businessman was being entertained, and it must have been embarrassing for his host to see one cute whore who had cottoned on to slipping up to the ‘posh’ area to eat his deli selection and take his phone calls! Likewise, the only other diners told the waiter they had ordered the €7 special of scampi and chips from the deli board. What is the point of having a formal waiter and then dragging it all down? As I said to the him on paying, we might have been better with the €7 scampi and chips!
Wolfe’s Wine & Food Store,
153 Capel Street,
Dublin 1.
Tel: (01) 874-9570
THIS REVIEW WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 15TH AUGUST, 2010.