Wine takes precedence over food at La Cave, Tom Doorley finds
The problem with simple bistro food is that it needs to be done really well. It doesn't need expensive ingredients and it doesn't need a whole lot of skill in the kitchen. What it does need is care and attention. Perhaps I visited La Cave on the one night in the year when the eye was off the ball, but a restaurant that can let a duck confit leave the kitchen adorned with a flabby, greasy, utterly repellent skin is a restaurant with a problem. It may be an aberration, but it's the kind of thing that shows that someone doesn't have a clue - or doesn't care - about what hits the table.
Or perhaps I'm being harsh. Perhaps they think that duck confit should be like this.
The big draw at La Cave is, of course, the wine list. It's one of the best in Dublin and its food is, perhaps, a secondary consideration. The other draw, for me, is the faded, nostalgic, cramped and rather intimate atmosphere of the place. Very cramped, as it happens. This subterranean, late-night restaurant forces you into conversation with neighbours. If you want bleached oak, this is not the place for you.
Grilled goats' cheese, nicely melted, was served on top of a reasonably well-dressed salad and was mopped up with equally reasonable bread. It was sluiced down with a glass of adequate sauvignon blanc, as was a very, very thin slice of decent chicken liver pâté, smooth and garlicky, on the same kind of salad. Such starters don't really stretch the kitchen skills.
Supreme of chicken stuffed with prosciutto and Emmental - crisp without, rather melting within - was a main course to match the decor, the ambience, and the general sense of having stepped back in time. If you hanker after the 1970s, this concoction, with its creamy, winey sauce is just the ticket. I can visualise it whisked from the hostess trolley and served with a well-chilled bottle of Black Tower. My word, how we've advanced. But it tasted good, even if it underlined for me how modern chicken tastes of what you put with it. Chicken these days is the meat-eater's tofu.
And then there was the duck confit. The idea here is that you simmer a duck leg and thigh in its own fat until the meat melts off the bone. Then you frazzle the skin until it's crisp. Much of the enjoyment lies in the contrast of textures.
In this instance, the skin was the texture of ... no, let's not go there. Had I wanted to achieve the same effect, I would have steamed it for a very long time until the subcutaneous fat was quite liquid, but retained within what tissue was left intact.
The flesh was fine: tender, full of flavour, pleasant enough. The tepid sauce Bordelaise was, however, far from sufficient to rescue this dish. Indeed, proper duck confit needs very little assistance in the way of sauce.
A straightforward crème brûlée was fine. Indeed it was a relief to see that it had not been tarted up: just rich, slightly jellied cream custard flavoured with vanilla and topped with a reasonably crisp layer of caramelised sugar. A flabby tarte tatin was pleasant enough, but we missed the usual contrast of texture between the apple and the pastry. Billed as coming with cinnamon ice cream, it came, in fact, with very, very ordinary vanilla ice cream dusted with cinnamon powder. Not the stuff of dreams. With a couple of glasses of house white, a bottle of good Crozes-Hermitage and one quite adequate espresso, the bill came to €105.30. The wine was by far the star of the evening. u
La Cave, South Anne Street, Dublin 2 (01-6794409)
Wine Choice: La Cave's list is excellent and largely French. Our Crozes-Hermitage Le Tuiliere 2000 from Jean-Luc Colombo was big, easy and dense with fruit at €37.50. Other stars include Montmirail Gigondas Vieilles Vignes (€40), Grange des Pères (€87.50), Château La Tour de By in the lovely 2000 vintage (€35), the delicate Fleurie La Madone (€31), Beaune Vigne de l'Enfant Jesus 1996 from Bouchard (€113), Cloudy Bay Sauvignon 2003 (€40), Mandolas Dry Furmint from Vega-Sicilia's Hungarian outpost (€25) and the electrifyingly dry and steely Freie Weingartner Gruner Veltliner from Austria (€27). Best value are probably toasty Stimson Chardonnay from Washington State (€18.50) and old favourite Terre Mégère (€19.50).