Amateur Review: Gary Rhodes D7

vibe666

Went on Thursday night with the g/f and two friends who up until recently were a hotel gm and head chef in 2 pretty swanky dublin hotels, so we were in good company.

A word of advice for the terminally unorganised. If you didn't book well in advance, you'll want to call first thing in the morning and get on the cancellation list for that day and you might be lucky as we were. Otherwise it's a long wait for a booking.

The menu is quite imaginitive with a lot of time being spent on making the starters something really quite interesting, with the mackeral paté (if you like mackeral, obviously) something quite special with the gooseberries perectly compimenting the fishy flavours, something which i wouldn't personally have put together but worked amazingly well.

There's also a crab dish that comes with what I can only describe as a poached egg kiev without the garlic butter. very odd, but a great idea and tasty too.

Something which struck us was how reasonable the wine was considering it was a well rounded selection of quality wines.

I had the lamb as my main and it was very nice indeed, although if you like your lamb well done, you'll want to give it a wide berth as it was cooked rare, which I liked, but some might not. it came with a seared vegetable ratatouille which was also very nice, and a minted hollandaise which complemented the whole thing well.

The risotto however was slightly bland and a little overcooked, but since ourhead chef friend was quick to point it out to to co-owner when he came over, I think they'll have that sorted by the time anyone else gets to try it. it was alittle embarrassing, but i suppose if a chef can't tell you, who can, and it's better to knw so you can fix it.

Now, the desserts were as you can imagine coming from Gary's imagination and sweet tooth, heavenly. this really is the place to go if you're a dessert person.

I had the Baileys creme brulee and it was amazing, but (and this might sound funny) only have it if you REALLY like Bailey's as I was actually concerned about driving home, even tho I hadn't been drinking the wine as the intense flavour of the baileys comes right through in the dish. I mean really, it was like they just reduced down the baileys until i was brulee consistency and topped it with caramelised sugar. it comes with coffee ice cream which was very obviously home made with real freshly brewed coffee, with not a hint of anything else, again amazing and the two flavours together were pretty special.

i really can't stress enough the intensity of the flavours. forget your hagen daz or ben and jerrys, this was the real deal dessert wise and not to be missed.

the others all had the lemon tart and I got a taste of it and it was also pretty damn impressive, but if I see a brulee OR something with baileys on a dessert menu anywhere I very rarely read past it, so I was all set with a double whammy.

the other thing that got me about the place was the atmosphere. we were there from 6pm and didn't leave till gone 10pm and there was no indication that they wanted to rush us at all. we came in enjoyed ourselves and spent as much time as we wanted doing what we were there to do.

I'd joked before we went that I was stopping off a burger king when we left to get filled up, but although the portions weren't huge, I didn't feel the need to stuff myself afterwards, which for me beig the huge bloke that I am, says quite a bit.

(out of 10)
starters - 8
main - 8
dessert - 10
wine - 9
atmosphere - 9
cost - 8
overall - 8.5]

There were four of us, we had 2 bottles of wine, I had a pint of coke (as driving) a couple of bottles of water and starters, main and dessert for all four. The bill came to €230, so less than €60 per head, not too bad for what it is.

the full menu can be downloaded HERE

frobisher

Nice one Vibe666, thanks for the review. What about some prices?

vibe666

I've added a little bit to the review regarding prices and a link to a copy of the full menu in PDF format at the bottom of the review so you can have a look.

hope that's okay, it's about 900kb tho.

Tazz T

The wine list is very reasonable. Mr Rhodes mustn't be aware of the rip-off Ireland yet.

Must try it out.

magpie

The bill came to €230, so less than €60 per head, not too bad for what it is.

Christ, that's GOOD! You could spend €60 a head on crappy pizza and beer in a number of establishments around town.

county

i really want to check this place out,thanks for the reveiw

Shabadu

I give it 6 weeks till the first price hike.

wyndham

Any early-bird menu yet for the tight bast@rds? (me);)

TapouT

I just ate there tonight with family and friends. Six of us in total, one bottle of wine, six starters, six mains and five deserts (all to die for) plus five bottles of beer and all for €345-

Absolutely fantastic.

Blub2k4

A mate of mine phoned earlier today they are booked out on saturdays for 7 months, I assume it was only saturdays he asked about, but he said booked out for 7 months and I know he was trying for tomorrow evening.

MiCr0

there was a review in yesterdays irish time magazine.

he didn't seem to be wowed