Winning mix of dinner and drama

A one-woman show in a small restaurant could have gone so wrong, but instead went so right, writes CATHERINE CLEARY

DINNER AND DRAMA is a tough gig to pull off. There is always a moment of cringe when someone opens their mouth to sing or perform in a live setting. In a theatre, you can sink lower in your seat in the darkness if it’s truly dire. In a small restaurant – not much larger than a generous kitchen – it’s not so easy to hide. So the stakes are high.

I’m sitting in Mayfield in Terenure in Dublin, a neighbourhood restaurant that celebrated its first anniversary recently. This place has a fanatic fanbase, including one customer who presented the owners with an oil painting of the shop front as a first anniversary present. It’s the kind of place that brightens up a row of shops and makes estate agents happy and I’ve admired it on my way by, but this is my first visit. I’ve been invited by a friend to the event. It strikes me as a clever way to fill the weekday evenings in a small restaurant.

The deal is good. It’s €20 for dinner, a glass of wine and a one-woman show by young actress Amy de Bhrun. But the stakes are about to get higher. I realise, as my friend chats to one of the two owners, that he knows not only the names of her children, but also her dog. This is not just any local joint. She has just invited a reviewer into the bosom of her neighbourhood. If Mayfield doesn’t pass muster, she may never be able to show her face in the place again.

Before this realisation dawns, I spend the minutes earwigging on a gaggle of women friends who have already warned one of the owners that he will need a bell to silence them once the show begins. The feel of a good night ahead is in the air.

Mayfield was a butcher shop for more than 100 years before its transformation into a restaurant. And the meat racks are still in situ on the ceiling, the old white tiles on the walls. Bone china tea sets are lined up in the window. It’s been sensitively refurbished without the gut-and-fill-with-anonymous-new-stuff approach. Outside, the first of our glorious spring evenings is fading to dusty blue and men in Lycra are whizzing by on their bikes on their way to the Dublin mountains for a training spin.

It’s an all-woman audience, groups of friends and one lone diner who have booked for the event in this cosy and convivial atmosphere. Tap water comes in a heavy stoppered bottle (all the rage these days) and we get two generous glasses of the dangerously drinkable house white, a Benovie Sauvignon Blanc. There is good bread and a sundried tomato paste with a basil pesto and black olives.

Thankfully, all the eating is out of the way before the show starts. There are just two choices of main course for the evening and both are very good. Ali has a chicken and tiger prawn curry, which comes with a coconut milk sauce, peppers, pak choi, baby corn, beansprouts and rice. The vegetables have been well cooked to retain their colour and bite. It’s delicious, like a supper you’d make at home if you’d brought a comprehensive list to the shops to ensure you had all the right ingredients. My plate of linguine with shaved fennel, courgettes, black olives, walnuts and garlic oil is a simple combination, with the salty olives providing a nice punch to the flavours.

We break out from the set deal and order desserts, a lemon poppy seed cake for me and chocolate flan for Ali. My cake is lemony and just-baked springy with plenty of pingy poppy seeds, a berry coulis and some crème fraiche. Ali’s chocolate flan is delicious, all the nicer for having seen the just-baked pastry cases carried into the kitchen a short while earlier, so these are as freshly prepared as things get.

By now, anything else that happens is just a bonus and Amy de Bhrun stands up at the door with a small red stool as her prop to give her one-woman show. It’s a lovely piece of theatre, short (around 45 minutes) funny and touching. It tells the story of Gráinne, a young Irish woman trying to make her way in London, professionally and romantically. There is music, some singing, a hilarious impersonation of a drunken male singer-songwriter and I’m transported back to my own days trying to negotiate London life.

The men behind Mayfield share a name and a long history in well-known Dublin restaurants. Partners in life for 15 years and now in business together, Kevin Byrne and Kevin Byrne are the chef and front of house partnership. They started out in Ranelagh’s Tribeca restaurant, Over the years Kevin the chef cooked in Gruel, Café Bar Deli and was most recently head chef in the Canal Bank Café. Kevin the manager was based in the Fern House Café in Avoca in Kilmacanogue for four years before they pursued their dream to open their own place.

They’re planning four more weeks of Amy de Bhrun’s show in June, with two theatre nights a week, seating 24 people. After that a recipe club is planned with a food talk and recipe exchange session over scones for around €6 with proceeds going to Our Lady’s Hospice in Harold’s Cross.

Dinner and the show with extra wine and dessert came to €59.60.

Twitter.com/catherineeats

Mayfield deli and eatery

7 Terenure Road North, Dublin 6, tel: 01-4926830

Wheelchair access: Yes, but limited space

Facilities: small and quirky

Music: Sounds of an old-fashioned kitchen radio rather than anything piped

Food provenance: They source cheeses through Sheridans; other ingredients as locally as possible.