Gallagher's Boxty House: Irish food with an Italian twist

While pitched squarely at the tourist trade, you could do worse than to brave the diddly-eye for a bowl of boxty, writes CATHERINE CLEARY

THERE IS A SPEAKER mounted in the doorway of Gallagher’s Boxty House in Dublin’s Temple Bar playing diddly-eye tunes out into the chilly evening air. The restaurant has a green-painted front and red and gold lettering in that hunched Celtic typeface where the letters look like they grew up in a turf smoke-filled cottage. It all combines to render Gallagher’s virtually invisible to the local gaze, a “tourists’ only” place as the Elephant and Castle next door packs them in.

So it’s a meal that feels like going undercover in touristland to see what “traditional Irish restaurant” food we’re missing. Disguised in a proper rain jacket, an item of clothing rarely worn by anyone who lives in Dublin, I’ve wandered in and been given a table, or rather one end of a long pine table with a couple at the other who look mildly miffed when I sit down.

Gallagher’s Boxty House (or GBH as its name is hammered into the copper fireplace hood) predates Temple Bar’s rebirth as the heaving heart of Dublin’s drinking quarter. The restaurant opened in 1988, in the days when CIÉ owned swathes of Dublin’s “left bank” and its pubs were small places with a mix of aul fellas and artists smelling of turps. I last ate there about 20 years ago and have happy memories of rib-sticking food.

Back then it seemed a clever idea to turn boxty, a thick floppy pancake made with grated potato, into a latter-day tortilla. The pancakes were filled with a choice of cream-laden mixtures and served to hungry hoards. It was a comfortable distance from boxty’s origins, the word comes from arán bocht tí or poor house bread. One account of boxty tells of a time when households were too poor to own a grater. Instead they punched holes into a hollowed half tin can and using the razor sharp edges to grate the spuds into the mix for pan (thicker soda bread) or griddle (pancake) boxty.

Since the 1980s Gallagher’s has grown. Its website proudly tells you how it opened a larger kitchen in an industrial estate to cope with the demand. And it has pitched itself squarely at the tourist trade. Inside it’s decked out like an Irish kitchen of the pewter mugs and pairs of china dogs variety. There is a lot of pine, much of it old, and the usual smattering of things we don’t use anymore, except to decorate pubs; stone hot water bottles, whiskey jars, sewing machines and the like.

There’s a three-course deal for €25.50, the courses included are marked on the menu with shamrocks. The boxty house doesn’t just do boxty. There are stews, including coddle, and more than a smattering of bistro-style dishes. My friend arrives, pronounces the shared table, “not a great start” and pulls up her Sugan chair. Things do get better.

A spiced beef starter is fine, five slices of pink meat with some horseradish sauce do justice to this Dublin dish. The brown bread they come with is less than fresh and certainly doesn’t taste home-made. The traditional Irish element of the dish goes off script on the side portion of roasted cherry tomatoes, basil and gherkins. A poached pear and Cashel Blue cheese salad is good but has an odd flavour addition of a dollop of pesto.

I get a large bowl of naturally smoked haddock, perched on a good portion of champ with a poached egg on top of it all. The fish is pale and tasty, simmered according to the menu, in milk and onions. The egg gives it a nice homely flavour and the champ is great. Yet again there are roasted cherry tomatoes in this dish, as if the chef can’t resist a pull towards Mediterranean cooking. My friend’s chicken and ham boxty is very good, a real plate of comfort eating, the filling smothered in a creamy leek sauce and wrapped in the heavy folds of a potato pancake.

Desserts are fine, a slab of bread and butter pudding with a super-sweet custard on the side and a toffee sauce. Two disks of meringue with a Hennessy brandy cream sauce do what they promise and elevate blood sugars to brave the night outside. The service from a young waitress has been excellent and we round off with two coffees.

Gallagher’s Boxty House is doing what many home cooks do, a version of Irish food with added Italian touches. The boxty is still original and worth a try. As a mid-range night out you could do worse than dig out an anorak and come into the parlour.

Dinner for two with two glasses of wine came to €69.

[ Twitter.com/catherineeats ]

Critic's cupcakes

Ever dreamed of jacking in the desk job and making cupcakes for a living? In the interests of research I'm doing just that (for one week only). My chocolate cup cakes will be available from today at Itsa Bagel's new cafe in Ranelagh and Terenure's Union Square cafe, deli and interiors shop.

The twist (because let's face it cupcakes are everywhere) is that these are free from refined sugar. They're baked using agave syrup, raw cacao and topped with a maple syrup chocolate ganache.

So can the critic cook? You decide. Feedback welcome at twitter.com/catherineeats. The project is the final chapter in a book called Thirty Given Days Someday Dreams into Everyday Life, which will be published this summer. Proceeds from the cupcakes will go to the Bone Marrow for Leukemia Trust, St James's Hospital.

Union Square, Terenure Road North, Dublin 6W. Itsa Bagel, The Triangle, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.