D'Olier Street Restaurant — Restaurant in Dublin

Connemara oyster, grapefruit, habanero, mint Porcini gougère, smoked gouda Cauliflower, brown butter, raisin and hazelnut soup Foie gras custard, quince, walnuts, served with English muffins Scallop, salsify, vanilla, dashi broth Halibut, red curry, shallot, basil Seeded pretzel, cultured spread Duck, pear, pain d'épice Blackberry mochi, apple custard Riz au lait (rice pudding), mango, cardamom Petit four (orange blossom cruller, lemon meringue tartlet, chocolate fudge brownie)

I'm not a fan of oysters, but it's a testament to the ones served here that I found it relatively palatable! 😂 I'd imagine oyster fans would be delighted.

The thin, crisp gougère had an earthy richness between the cheese and mushroom flavours.

The cauliflower soup was fantastic - it had the full flavour of caramelised cauliflower thanks to the brown butter, without the vegetal notes. Coupled with the raisin and hazelnut, it toed that magical line of sweet-savoury despite not having any actual sweetness to it.

The foie gras had that classic voluptuousness you'd expect, punctuated with the quince. Fairly standard like so many other places, but the walnuts provided a great contrast in both crunch and deep nuttiness (English muffins were also a great accompaniment and perfectly shaped, flavoured and baked).

The scallop was interesting and gave an unctuous raw scallop flavour that was accentuated by the salsify (probably my personally least favourite dish).

The halibut course was completely mind-blowing and my favourite. The red curry was deeply intense but only with a tingling heat, and the shallot and basil were nice to complement with caramelised sweetness, but the fish itself was utterly divine. It was cooked so delicately that it melded mouthfeel textures between cooked and raw, bolstering the simple flavour beyond the sum of its parts.

The pretzel was a fine pretzel, and the spread - while a small portion - was enough as it was packed full of umami (herbal?) flavour.

The duck course was delicious but simple and could be overly rich, and personally 1) I'm not a huge fan of cooked fruit with meat and 2) I am always biased against any non-Cantonese roast duck.

Dessert was good - the mochi was playful (though it did trigger a pastry chef pet peeve of mine of still having freezer frost on it, potentially unavoidably so.

The rice pudding (in French for some fanciful reason 😂) was good in that it was not overly sweet, and had a wonderful, rounded dulcet sweetness with a hint of nuttiness.

The petit four were good - mainly the cruller. The lemon meringue tartlet - while showing off great skill - was straightforward in its citric refreshment. The brownie was way too rich for an end to a 12 course meal (and while I am always a proponent for fresh doughnuts, the cruller could be too).

I don't normally highlight much drinks as I'm mainly just an eater, but I do need to mention that the burnt lemon non-alcoholic cocktail was incredibly playful and delicious. This was served with my favourite course - halibut - and possessed that uncanny sweet/savoury tone that delightfully confuses the taste buds. While generally sweet, it wasn't overly so, and the burnt lemon gave a Maillard reaction savouriness that gave a nutty flavour that balanced out the drink. Coupled with the fish course, it shined in itself and on the halibut and red curry.

My only feedback was the pace of dishes being served. At 12 courses, it's a lot of dishes that need to be presented and introduced. These were served very quickly after the last, and this led to frequent interruptions in conversation throughout the evening and a jarring cadence to the flow...

I hate to give a 1 star review because everyone on the staff except one person was amazing and the food was great.

Unfortunately, when we arrived we had a very poor experience with Scott (assistant gm) who treated us like we were an inconvenience to his evening before we even got seated.

After that initial impression - on our way to our table, I nicely asked why we were being seated at the counter, because when we had booked we had two options - Wednesday evening at the chefs counter or Thursday evening at the chefs table. Because it was a team event, I preferred a table, so booked the chefs table on Thursday.

So, back to Scott. I didn’t make a big deal of it, but I mentioned we had reserved the chefs table, and without looking at anything, thinking about it, or offering an explanation, he immediately said something like — ‘you booked the counter when you reserved, we don’t have any other space’

I opened my reservation on my phone and it says chefs table. Which, I assumed meant a table because it wasn’t reserved under the other option of chefs counter…

I opened up the reservation system again (ie where I made my reservation) and it had separate options for chefs table and chefs counter (which should imply a table vs a counter).

Didn’t matter. I was just ignored, treated as an inconvenience and Scott moved on. He said he’d check to see if there was anything he could do and never returned.

I didn’t want to make a big deal in front of my team. We were spending too much money on the evening and getting in an argument at the beginning of a dinner like that ruins the whole (very expensive) evening. Thanks Scott.

Awful awful awful first experience especially from an assistant gm.

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Outside of the awful service from Scott, everything else was perfect. The food was great. The rest of the staff was great. The venue was beautiful.

Coming out of dinner, I was really sad that the hard work of the chefs, other managers and waitstaff were so overshadowed by one person.

If you want great service, check out: Kickys Sole

100% of the waitstaff at those restaurants treated us kindly, and the...

I could now describe how good the food and the pairing wines were. But many people have already described that here before me. So I'll try a different image: it was our first evening in Dublin and we talked about this evening at every subsequent dinner in Dublin. And in a good way. The evening was definitely a highlight of our holiday. The restaurant is on the ‘reasons for another Dublin holiday’ list.

We were seated at the Chef's Table and were lucky enough to be served each course with a short introduction from the chefs. We were also able to watch the hustle and bustle in the kitchen. It was very impressive to see how well-rehearsed the team is in such a small space. And any problems that arose were solved without any shouting, you could only tell by the serious whispering.

Without wishing to diminish the other courses, two courses have remained very clearly in my memory. One is the foie gras. I am generally a huge fan of foie gras. I almost always order it when it's on the menu. But it's not always good. The one served here immediately made it into my top 2. The other is a variation slightly flavoured with coffee and chocolate. To be able to decide which one is the best, I would have to taste them side by side. However, there are a few hundred kilometres between the restaruants. But the mere fact that I'm thinking about knocking my long-term favourite off the throne is a statement.

The second course is the pretzel. And I have to say right away that I may be German, but I'm not Bavarian. So the pretzel itself is not a staple food for me. Nevertheless, pretzels and pretzel pastries are also ubiquitous in the Ruhr region. The Seeded Pretzel was not only delicious, but exactly as it should be: crispy on the outside but nice and soft on the inside. The Obatzda served with it was not a ‘must be served with something’ side dish but was perfectly balanced with the smoked cheese and enhanced the pretzel even more.

But I've probably already written far too much, so I'll stop here. Long story short:...