Review: A restaurant where Jilly Cooper meets ‘The Crown’

I'm too old for the cable-knit hats with furry pom-poms breeding like rabbits on chilly streets these days. But I'm not sure I'll ever be old enough for the mood board that the Coburg is working in Dublin's Conrad Hotel. It's Jilly Cooper meets The Crown. I notice the leather straps first. They're stretched over the cream and navy seating. And then I spot so many shiny stirrup and bridle bits dotted around the place I'm surprised we're not sitting side-saddle for lunch.

There is a vaguely historical reason for all this horsiness. The Coburg Gardens was the name of the Iveagh Gardens in the early 19th century. The entrance to the gardens was through the Royal Horse Bazaar, on St Stephen’s Green, which sold horse carriages and all manners of equine potions, according to its ads in this newspaper from the 1860s.

The Coburg Brasserie, which opened last year, is at the back of the revamped Conrad Hotel and shows every sign of a lot of attention from an interior designer who loves a theme. The seats by the window are the best and are duly reserved. So we tuck ourselves in one row further into the room and then we’re off on a canter through the lunch menu.

There’s nothing to startle the horses here (I’m nearly done), although it reads a little oddly like a mash-up of brunch, salad bar and brasserie. I figure it’s an expense-account wheeze where everyone from the breakout group finds something they like when they escape the Powerpoint presentations for a spot of lunch – or nosebag as the wags might call it. (That’s it. All equined out now). All of which means I should hate it. But I don’t.

Enamel tin pot

Because the food here is not bad. There’s an enamel tin pot of fat, juicy Roaring Water Bay mussels served in a classic milky soup of cream, onion, garlic, wine and parsley. The bread it comes with is all crust and very little body but makes the perfect medium for mopping up creamy, garlicky mussel broth. Across the table there’s a prawn cocktail. Good prawns topping a neat vegetable dice and brought up to date with a sprinkling of micro cress. It comes in a fan of crisp lettuce leaves, all of it popped in a bronzed cocktail glass-shaped tin.

And it’s all delivered by a smart, friendly group of wait staff. A special of mushroom risotto could do with being a little more mushroomy. It’s a risotto that gives the impression that the mushrooms were added to a blank canvas base rather than forming part of the flavour meld early on in the cooking process. My seared beef carpaccio is a having-your-cake-and-eating-it way to serve a plate of raw beef. It’s been seared (and spiced with cumin on the outside) so it’s ringed with brown like a thin-barked tree and raw inside. I’d prefer it without the searing but it’s been sliced nicely thin and served with an “aged parmesan”. This is my only niggle on the plate. If you’re making the age of your cheese a thing on a menu it should be properly old with more of the distinctive flavour, occasional tooth crunch and colour that comes when a Parmesan wheel clocks up a serious stretch in an ageing room.

Disc of pastry

The waiter explains that the dessert I want will take 20 minutes as it’s cooked to order. Like the rest of the lunch it’s a competent piece of cooking, a disc of pastry freshly puffed up in the oven with a layer of pear slices on top. A jug of warm mulled wine is there to be poured on top and good ice cream, as it should be for €9.

Nothing in this glossily maned place is cheap, but it’s done well and with real things. My heart always sinks when the hedging outside what looks like a smart place turns out to be plastic, leaves fading in the sunlight rather than thriving in it. Here this stuff is real, from the topiary outside through tables of gorgeous flowers to the small succulents in pots at our table.

This attention to detail means the Coburg is a hotel restaurant that makes a good job of making you feel like you’re not in a hotel restaurant, which is my kind of place.

Verdict: 6.5/10 A smart place with good brasserie-style food.

Facilities: Fine

Music: Nice piano jazz

Food provenance: Good on seafood with Roaring Water Bay mussels, Castletownbere crab and Kilkeel scallops

Wheelchair access: Yes

Vegetarian options: Limited

Second Helping . . .

In the spirit of becoming someone who actually goes to the theatre rather than talks about going, I ate my lunch at a play recently. Bewley's lunchtime shows have been transplanted to the top floor of the Powerscourt Centre as the revamp of the Bewley's mothership continues its long run on Grafton Street. The theatre seating has been replaced with tables and bentwood chairs where the audience can eat hot soup before the play starts. I had just finished my €4 bowl of sweet potato soup with a doorstep of tasty brown bread when Stephen Jones sat on a decommissioned toilet in an abandoned bathroom at a house party on New Year's Eve. His play From Eden was terrific, a two-hander piece with a smart and moving story that unfolds when he's joined in the bathroom by the brilliant Seána Kerslake. Ian Toner's Animalia takes to the stage this month.