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Restaurant Review - Nico's

Restaurant Review - Nico's

Tuesday 26 April 2016

Love Is a Many Splendored Thing’, the romantic theme from the 1955 movie of the same name was being played by a pianist in Nico’s Italian Restaurant in Dame Street as we were about to make our departure. That was the clincher. We’d already fallen in love all over again with Nico’s, not having been there for at least twenty-five years. It had felt a little like being in a restaurant that was retro themed, but this was the real magnificent McCoy. We’d walked through the door from a cold biting wind on Dame Street to be enveloped in rich Art Deco style, with vast square hanging lamps, beautiful etched-glass windows, tied back drapes, upholstered dining chairs and a big feature mirror, with a tortoiseshell-effect central panel, at the end of the room. The carpet was rich, the tables draped in white linen, the waiters were uniformed in black trousers and waistcoats, red ties and tie pins - professional Italian waiters who have seen it all, and not some hipsters dressed up for the night. It seemed that many of the customers were regulars, the two ladies by the wall, tucked up close and talking confidentially, the young romantic Italian-looking couple, the priest in mufti who on donning his spectacles looked as though he was reading the sermon, as the waiter took his cue and arrived with a second glass of red wine, the guy who looked like a rock star and was profuse in his thanks on departure, the group of mainly suits who announced they were from a media organization, you could have almost written a book about the clientele alone.
The eponymous Nico’s was first opened in 1963 by Nico Ruggiero. It was taken over in 1977 by the current owner, Emilio Cirillo, who, back then, was a young Roman chef working in Bernardo’s, a well known Italian restaurant of the time on Lincoln Place. The food
is classic, with starters (€8.00- €11.95) covering smoked salmon, Parma ham and melon, crab
claws in garlic and white wine, aubergine parmigiana. Mary had a delicious special of spinach ravioli stuffed with mozzarella (€8.00), elegantly presented like a four leaf clover on a creamy sauce around crispy deep fried shreds
of aubergine. I had an antipasti plate (€10.95) with mortadella, coppa, salami, cheese, and a little dish of black olives and marinated mushrooms. Both delicious.
Mains (€13.95-€23.95) cover
all the favourite pasta and chicken dishes, from spaghetti frutti di mare to fettuccine with mushrooms to chicken cacciatora. Veal is obviously popular here because it comes six ways, from saltimbocca alla romana to pizzaiola and parmigiana, while steaks include straight up sirloin and fillets, or fillet Rossini with homemade pate and red wine sauce. Alternatively, you can have scampi or prawns in garlic and white wine, or sole Duffin, fresh prawns wrapped in sole fillets in a garlic and white wine sauce. Mary had scaloppini vino bianco (€21.95), which had three good sized escallops of veal overlapping one another in a white wine sauce. Grilled sole on the bone for me (€22.95) was perfectly cooked and good value for this king of fish. There weren’t any vegetable garnishes on the mains, so you’d need sides at €3.25. We shared buttered fettuccine.
We completed the experience with Swiss roll style Cassata (€6.50) - filled with mixed peel, and a sundae glass of fluffy ‘egg whip” Zabaglione al Marsala (€7.50).
We didn’t have to think a lot when it came to the extensive wine list – the choice was from €32 up to €200 – or the house wine at €23! So, with a bottle
of Cerulli Spinozzi Trebbiano d’Abbruzzo 2013 (€23), bottled water (€3), double espresso (€3.50) and optional service, our bill came to €125.
Nico’s
53 Dame Street, Dublin 2.
Tel: (01) 677-3062
lucindaosullivan.com

First published in the Sunday Independent.