Wuff: From no-go to boho

Wuff is a beacon of light in a formerly  run-down area of inner city Dublin

The real sign that Benburb Street has gone from no-go to boho is a storm lantern hanging outside Wuff, its newest restaurant. The large glass box has a thick church candle flickering warmly inside, surrounded by some miniature squash. It’s like a Martha Stewart postcard. Underneath, there’s a woven basket full of flowering heathers.

Until the Luas cut through here, this Dublin back street, running parallel to the city’s quays, was one of the city’s saddest red light districts, a place where young addicts waited in dark doorways. It was a long way from storm lanterns and baskets of flowers.

Wuff is in a lovely corner building and makes a cosy city sight on a winter’s night. There are more candles inside and filament bulbs in cages. It has the kind of smart vintage feel that makes you think this place has been here a long time. It hasn’t. The building is old. It’s listed on Dublin City Council’s list of protected structures. But before this, it was a car radio shop the waitress says, and before that it may have been a post office. One of the owners bought the building and lives upstairs, she explains. They wanted to do something with the ground floor and Wuff is the result.

Inside, the lighting is dim enough to require one table of two couples to pass around a communal pair of reading glasses to decipher the menu. An old iron squared grill on the inside of the window cuts the light from outside into crisp rectangles.

When the Luas to town runs by, it feels like the driver and passengers have glided by your table close enough to reach out and nab a chip.

There is a mirror set into the wall above the banquette seating on one side so the glow from headlights and tail lights bounces around here, turning the city traffic into a light show.

So the setting is romantic. It lets you see a bit of Dublin anew and be beguiled by its urban character. But what about the food? It’s great too, in that competent bistro-cooking way. A shared starter of pigeon breast on Puy lentils combines a smoky charred skin with the silkiness of this dark luscious meat. The lentils have tiny ribbons of bacon in the mix and some pea shoots to finish it off.

The dry-aged sirloin steak arrives much more medium than medium-rare, but is still good. A strand of cherry tomatoes confited on their stalk looks and tastes great. The chips are a textbook combination of fluff and crisp. The only quibble is a cold and slightly too teeny portion of an otherwise excellent Béarnaise sauce.

I get the cod, which is probably the best piece of fish I’ve eaten in Dublin all year. It’s porcelain white, with a lid of dark grey skin that’s as lip-smacking as any potato crisp. There’s a voluptuously buttery wilt of spinach underneath and some good small potatoes at the bottom. A side order of orange-marinated beets comes as a bowl of sugar-cube size pieces which bleed their lurid purple into the buttery fish juices when they’re tipped onto the plate. Some sesame seeds have been sprinkled through and there’s no great citrus flavour, but that harmony of earth and sweetness of the beets is good enough for me.

We share a bottle of the house red, Tocornal, a Chilean cabernet sauvignon, and there’s chilled tap water in a heavy, screw-lidded glass bottle.

The bread and butter pudding is eggy, creamy nursery comfort heaven. We share a crispy corner bit of this dessert, a slice which was obviously cut from a slab cooked in a tray. Along with the eggs and cream there’s sugar and brioche and raisins swollen almost back to their grape size during the cooking. Tea comes in a clay pot. And there’s no sense of being rushed out the door into the chilly night.

Like its name, Wuff is simple. And we left with our tails wagging. Dinner for two with a bottle of wine, coffee and tea came to €80.85 Open for dinner only Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Wuff

23 Benburb St, Dublin 7, tel: 01- 532 0347

Music: Lovely. We went from Ray La Montagne to jazz

Wheelchair access: Yes

Food provenance: None

Facilities: Fine

Second helping...

I try not to be disappointed by life but it invariably happens when I eat porridge anywhere other than in my own kitchen. Most hotel or restaurant porridge is like gruel compared to the creamy concoction we make at home, with cinnamon, giant raisins, honey or maple syrup and whatever fresh fruit comes to hand.

But I wasn’t disappointed by Honest To Goodness’s porridge offering recently.

The cafe is a tiny tunnel-like bakery in the George’s Street Arcade in Dublin where a long wooden spoon acts as the door handle. The porridge (€4) is made with milk (essential) and served with honey. I also got a plate of pillow-soft French toast with crisp, just-charred bacon (€6.95). As Goldilocks might have said. Just right.

Honest to Goodness,

25 Market Arcade, Georges St, Dublin 2

tel: 01- 633 7727