CHEAP EATS:We're embracing frugal eating at home, but we still want to step out from time to time with friends and family. What are restaurants doing to keep our custom as we tighten our belts? Tapas anyone? Pizza? Pasta? Neck of lamb or foot of pig? We don't mind, as long as it's good food at a reasonable price, and – here's the real challenge – sourced in Ireland whenever possible. Make "Eat Local" your mantra, writes TOM DOORLEY.
IF ALL THE rumours had turned out to be true, half the restaurants in Dublin would have closed by now. There is a national weakness of character as far as bad news is concerned, a kind of unhealthy glee, a barely disguised pleasure in the misfortunes of others. Especially as far as restaurants are concerned.
There is a sense – and it’s not entirely misplaced – that restaurants pushed their prices to the limit that the market could bear during the heady days of the boom. And the market could bear quite a lot of barefaced cheek.
Not that the restaurant business has ever been an easy way to make serious money, of course. In the good times, it delivered a decent living, especially if you could deal with the hours (decidedly not family-friendly) and the trouble of finding and keeping staff who knew – to use an old wine trade phrase – their Arsac from their Elbe. But there were easier ways of coining it. Property conveyancing and selling dubious investment properties spring to mind. To say nothing of loaning huge sums of theoretical money in order to boost the annual “bonus”.
But there’s no doubt that the average restaurant got used to charging the kind of money, often for mediocre or downright bad meals, that deserves a sharp smack.
And that’s just what the restaurant industry has received. Smarting from a sudden and deeply unpleasant dose of reality, it has been left dazed, deeply worried and forced into a situation where imagination is at a premium.
Aidan Cummins took over as chief executive officer of the Restaurant Association of Ireland at the start of the year. “There is a huge sense of challenge,” he says. “There’s a new reality out there and however much our members react positively to the new environment, there’s the question of how we get the message out to people that restaurants are bending over backwards to meet the new demands.”
The association is planning a media campaign to encourage consumers to see eating out as a kind of patriotic duty. In this respect, it echoes the sentiments of Jay Bourke of Cafe Bar Deli, Eden and Bellinter House fame. Something of a maverick restaurateur, Bourke created the Shebeen Chic bar and restaurant on Dublin’s South Great George’s Street out of recycled materials, with a menu created by eccentric Cork chef Seamus O’Connell, and a considerable sense of fun.
Bourke believes eating out is a form of entertainment. “If you go to the cinema for a night a out,” he says, “your money goes to Hollywood, and then there’s the Coca-Cola and the popcorn. And the cinema itself probably belongs to Richard Branson, so your spend essentially goes to multinationals. Eat in your local restaurant and your money stays in the local economy. With a bit of luck, you’ll have more fun and you’ll spend the evening talking and communicating rather than looking at a screen in respectful silence. Yes, there is something patriotic about eating out.”
Well, yes, I get the general idea. But I don’t think I’m being too cynical when I remind myself that a lot of restaurants serve up tiger prawns from Bali and chicken from Brazil. If restaurants are to play the patriotic card, they have to support indigenous producers. This is not always easy as we are a relatively high cost economy.
One restaurant owner says: “We love supporting local producers and artisans, but very little of their stuff fits into our cheap menus. If you are charging €15 for two courses, local free-range chicken is too dear. We use their stuff, we love their stuff, but we are selling less of it.”
Late last year, a lot of people assumed January 2009 would see the meltdown of the restaurant business. Christmas would be the last hurrah and utter gloom would follow. But the restaurant trade has staggered on quite successfully.
Town Bar & Grill has seen the best January since it opened in late 2005, but as proprietor Ronan Ryan says: “The prices have stayed the same. The set lunch was €26.95 for three courses, including a rib-eye steak, when we opened. And it’s still the same in 2009. I think people appreciate that. And the fact that a main course is a complete main course. People hate being ripped off with side orders. They don’t like stealth pricing. If you’re honest with people in the good times, chances are that they will stay with you when times get tough.”
David Barry opened the Independent Pizza Company in Drumcondra in 1984. “I was a science graduate and the only place with job opportunities at that stage was Germany. And I didn’t speak German. Emigration wasn’t really an option, so I started making pizzas. And, you know, with all this talk of the bad old times, I have to say that we didn’t know that it was bad. We just set up the business and tried to sell people something good. And, thank God, it worked. We opened Gotham Cafe in 1989 and we’ve been here through good times and bad.”
Somehow I feel that people will be eating more pasta and pizza. It’s cheap and when it’s good, it can be great. It’s no wonder Dunne Crescenzi is still packed most of the time.
Paul Grealish runs The Malt House in Galway. “We’ve all had time to prepare for the new reality,” he says, “and there’s a lot of talk about being imaginative and creative, but when it comes down to it, it’s all about price. If you’re paring costs to the bone it limits what you can do. The imagination is probably more relevant to marketing and how you run your business rather than to creating new recession-beating dishes.”
Lock’s in Dublin’s Portobello, however, is being creative with its menu. “We’ve restructured the menu to be more in tune with the times and with how people actually eat,” says manager Kelvin Rynhart. “Everything is available in small, medium and large portions. It’s like starters, large starters and mains. And we have a plat du jour for €17.50 including a glass of wine. This really suits our chef, Troy Maguire, who has a natural love of traditional French cooking where cheaper cuts make stunning but very affordable dishes. Neck of lamb, for example, has stunning flavour if you go about it in the right way.” And is it working? “People love this kind of approach. It turns eating out, as we have known it in Ireland, on its head. People now know that they can drop in casually on the way home from work and enjoy good food at a very reasonable price. It’s not a big occasion. It’s like the way people have been using restaurants in France or Italy for generations.”
Graham Campbell, who opened his first Mao restaurant in Chatham Row 12 years ago, says the secret of survival in the restaurant trade is listening to the customers. “Maybe we became a bit too elaborate in what we were doing during the boom years,” he says. “Now we’re going right back to what made Mao a success in the early years. And we’ve cut the prices to the bone. You can have two courses at lunch for €12.95. You can’t afford to advertise much when you’re paring down costs that much, but a sign on the door and word of mouth means that we’re pretty busy.”
Canice Sharkey of Isaac’s in Cork shares the view that it’s all about prices these days and that, having been in business for over a decade, you can learn by looking back to how you got going in the first place. “You need to manage your menu,” he says. “If you offer a really good club sandwich with fries and salad at lunch for €10.95, people will prefer it to lamb chops at €17.95. And you make the same kind of money on both.” Isaac’s now also offers a takeaway service. “This has been a great success,” according to Sharkey. “People get a main course, good bread and salad for €15 a head to eat home. And it means we get more out of the kitchen, sales that we probably wouldn’t get otherwise.”
There’s a kind of catch-22 here, of course. A lot of restaurateurs are offering very attractive deals, but the cost structure means they can’t shout about it. This is a good time to scour restaurant websites for lunch deals, early-bird offers and Monday/Tuesday specials.
To give just a few examples, Alexis in Dún Laoghaire is doing an early bird of two courses for €16, three for €20. The highly estimable L’Écrivain is offering a three-course lunch, Monday to Friday, for €25 and a five-course dinner, including a bottle of wine, for €125 for two. Chapter One offers a three-course lunch, or a “pre-theatre” dinner for €37.50.
It strikes me that restaurants are so busy trying to offer what they consider to be compelling value, that not enough time is spent on weighing up the competition. “The only way to survive the hard times is to keep a very keen eye on costs,” Aidan Cummins says. “And that’s a daily process. It’s the only way that restaurants can avoid being ambushed by very unpleasant financial surprises.”
Costs, of course, cover a multitude. Wages, by and large, are higher in Dublin than in London. Waste disposal has to be factored in, to say nothing of insurance and Irish Music Rights Organistation (Imro) fees.
But there is a feeling in the restaurant world that the chickens (many of them, no doubt, from South America) will come home to roost only in February when the 60 days’ credit runs out and restaurants have to shell out for the costs that they incurred in the run-up to Christmas.
If there are to be casualties, and there’s no doubt that there will be, they will start to fall in March. But the new realism seems to extend beyond the restaurant business itself. Landlords, in general, are becoming more reasonable. Rent reviews may well turn out to be in a downward direction. There’s a big difference between a restaurant that pays a modest rent and an empty building with little or no hope of being let. Having said that, one city-centre restaurant has been faced with a hike from €180,000 per annum to €380,000. Which would suggest that realism is still not universal.
There seems to be some evidence that even those who can still justify whopping restaurant bills (easily achieved with enough Puligny-Montrachet and the odd grand cru claret) are reluctant to be seen consuming conspicuously (and hence off-trade sales of serious wines are still pretty healthy). One major bank told branch managers last week that the maximum allowable spend on meals for key clients is now €50 for two. Jo’Burger is, I suppose, one possible option.
So restaurants must now look to us ordinary punters for their bread and butter. And we are going to need some compelling persuasion.
But when restaurants concern themselves intensely with providing real value for money, it's good for everyone. The recent Irish Timeslunch promotion demonstrated that very effectively. "Lunch Times" sold out so quickly that I missed my chance of lunch at the Cellar restaurant at the Merrion Hotel. And I was pretty quick off the mark.
It amazes me that a sliding scale of mark-up on wine is still considered revolutionary (the idea being that restaurants sell expensive wines at something close to retail prices and standard wine at standard restaurant prices). But it is being considered, at last, by restaurateurs who, a year ago, would have laughed at the idea.
It seems that restaurants are listening at long last. With a bit of luck, our reasonable demands will be met and eating out will be cheaper and better. But only time will tell.
WHAT PUNTERS WANT ...
Local food.We don't want Brazilian chicken.
To be appreciated.No more snooty service, thanks.
Waiting staffwho can tell us something useful about each dish– including where it comes from
A jug of
filtered tap waterwithout asking
To feel comfortable ordering
one course- we rarely need more
Cheaper,
better coffee
Lower marginson dearer wines
No penalty for ordering
wine by the glass
Mineral waterthat doesn't cost five times the retail price
Service included
Child friendlinessThat means home cooking, as well as a high chair
... AND DON'T WANT
Stealth charges, such as "side" dishes at extra cost
"House" wine
above €21
Being asked,
"still or sparkling?"
Mean portions
Fillet steaks,as flavourless as they are and expensive
Cover charges
Supplements
The
breadto be whisked away after the first course
Big brand wines.We'll pay for the wine, not the advertising
Waiting staff constantly
refilling our glasses
Loud musicto make us drink more out of desperation
TODAY'S SPECIALS: DUBLIN DEALS
Alexisin Dún Laoghaire has an early bird menu of two courses for €16, three for €20. The highly estimable
L'Ecrivainis offering a three-course lunch, Monday to Friday, for €25 and a five-course dinner, including a bottle of wine, for €125 for two.
Chapter Oneoffers a three-course lunch, or a "pre-theatre" dinner for €37.50.
Daxon Pembroke Street is doing an "early bird" three-course dinner for €35. The three-course lunch at two-star
Restaurant
Patrick Guilbaudis a fiver cheaper than one-star
Thornton'sat €55. In terms of the quality of the cooking, comparisons would be odious. But a fiver is a fiver. Speaking of fivers,
Odessa's Fivers Menu adapts to the real world at €5 a plate. They're not as big as dinner portions, but not as small as tapas.
Maobranches are offering two courses at lunch for €12.95.
Carluccio's on Dawson Street in Dublin 2 is offering a two-course menu, with coffee, for €11.95. From Monday to Friday, between noon and 5pm,
Wagamamaand
Captain America's are offering lunch, with a soft drink, for €9.95.
Dunne & Crescenzi's basic bowl of pasta for €9, in a buzzy atmosphere, might cheerN you up and Itsa4, Domini Kemp's restaurant in Sandymount, has kids' meals for €5 and cut prices above the board.
The Houserestaurant in Howth is launching "Soup and Stew for a tenner", serving coddle, venison stew and mash and local fish stew using Irish produce.