If it could just lose the Muzak, this place would offer pretty well unalloyed pleasure
I like Ely. It's unique. I once arranged to meet the restaurant critic of one of the British national papers for a quick aperitif there prior to taking him off to what was then a restaurant-of-the-moment and which is now, deservedly, no more. After two minutes of scanning the monumental wine list, and having scented the organic bangers and mash, this distinguished commentator plaintively asked: "Can we just stay here? Oh look! They do proper beer, too. And that looks like Vega Sicilia by the glass over there . . ."
Needless to say, we stayed. But I don't think that people go to the original Ely, the largely subterranean establishment near St Stephen's Green, for the food. Surely the real draw is the wine list, which is probably the greatest in the land. I've never been disappointed in what I have drunk there, but the food has failed to wow me on occasion.
Now that Ely has opened a 350-seater satellite, ely-chq, in the International Financial Services Centre, it will need good food to survive. Filling such a huge establishment on the strength of a great wine list would be impossible. There are not enough dipsomaniacs in the IFSC (or else they conceal it very well).
In an effort to reinforce the notion of alcohol in the context of food, and to encourage responsible behaviour, we brought our three children to this new mega wine bar. Oh hell, of course, that wasn't the reason. We just wanted a couple of glasses of wine and a bite to eat, and the children needed feeding.
And we ate and drank well, if not entirely comfortably. In the echoing vaults of the CHQ building there's not much to absorb noise. Adding Muzak to the cacophony is pure torture. Ely is not a place for a quiet chat. For the duration of lunch I lost vocal contact completely with my most geographically distant daughter.
Game terrine was ace: dead simple, generous, chunky and really, really gamy. Smoky, grilled calamari served on top of a crisp, well-flavoured bruschetta of tomatoes was simple and superb, while wafer thin carpaccio of beef with capers was full of taste.
The Ely Nicoise, a kind of deconstructed version of the Provencale salad, was odd. The salad was fresh, the dressing excellent, all the elements fine in themselves, but everything was served at an arctic temperature, including the generous chunks of grilled rare tuna. If this fish had been hot, or even warm, it would have been great.
Chicken pie, creamy and enriched with peas and carrots, beneath a canopy of buttery, flaky pastry, was comfort food of the nursery kind, and just the ticket with a glass of soft, ripe red wine. It wasn't challenging, just bloody good. And the same can be said for a generous filo parcel of vegetables.
Two of us tucked into the organic bangers and mash - great big plump sausages in which the seasoning and proportion of fat to lean has obviously been worked out to the milligram, with a slightly sweet gravy that appeared to be flavoured with ginger. It came with buttery, smooth champ.
Yogurt mousse turned out to be a kind of cheesecake, very fresh and clean tasting, scented with peppermint and anointed with a thin sauce of bitter, dark chocolate. It was a pud with a difference. The two youngest members of the family put away some decent ice cream (the mango one receiving a lot of praise). The parents shared a plate of cheeses in perfect condition. The extra ripe and creamy Gorgozola was stunning with a glass of tawny port.
With three bottles of mineral water, three glasses of wine and two glasses of port, plus a couple of espressos (for the two youngest children), the bill for this pleasant, large, if rather noisy, lunch was €170.15.
It has come to the stage in Dublin where it is very hard to fill a new restaurant with experienced, professional staff. Finding people for this vast place can't have been easy, but they seem to have got it right. There are clearly some good cooks in the kitchen, and the front-of-house people are exemplary. If it could just lose the bloody Muzak, ely-chq would offer pretty well unalloyed pleasure. And there aren't too many places of which I can say that. The only downside is that it has raised the stakes for family outings.
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Wine Choice
Having just entered the retail wine trade in a very small way, I was greatly cheered to see that I stock many of the same wines as Ely. But its list is vast, and it would be impossible to do justice to it here. Let's just say that it is chosen with more care and passion than virtually any other selection in the land. We had two glasses of the lovely, crisp Domaine Talmard Mâcon-Uchizy (€6.75) and one of Château de la Janasse Côtes du Rhône (€6.50), which is rightly suggested to go with the bangers. Had we been lunching alone we might have been wildly extravagant and had the Olivier Merlin Mâcon la Roche Vineuse Vieilles Vignes, which is pure heaven at €9, and the stupendous Mauro (€12.45) from the former winemaker at Vega Sicilia.