Some restaurants tell you where you are. Others, who you are. The Pig‘s Ear tells you who you were – or who you might have been, back in the day – with a full wallet, linen on the table, and Joyce on the brain.
Stephen McAllister and Andrea Hussey have been running “Piggy”, as they call it, since 2008. In Dublin years that’s practically Neolithic. After a six-month trial project last year called Lotus Eaters, they have brought back the original name and reopened in March, with a new menu and an old soul: a culinary time machine reimagining how Dublin might have eaten 100 years ago. It’s a kitchen project steeped in literature, art and long-lost recipes – with a dash of Joyce and a whiff of Jammet’s.
The dinner menu includes famine soup, pork from Meath Street via 17th-century Dutch settlers, and a dish of tongue and kidneys in honour of Ulysses. It could be awful. It isn’t.
It’s a handsome room. You sit looking out over Trinity College, which is fitting, because this is the first menu in town with its own bibliography. The theme threads through without hijacking the meal, and mercifully, the staff don’t recite the footnotes. We skip the “tongue ‘n’ cheek kidney pudding”, which the waiter describes as quite kidney heavy – not for everyone. We also pass on the coddle. I’ve had it, I get it, I’m fine.
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So it’s the boxty pancake with Cáis na Tíre and truffle (€12.50) to start. The pancake is soft – more farl than boxty – with none of the crisp texture grated potato usually delivers. It’s topped with mushroom duxelles and a glossy cheese custard, then finished with a drift of micro-planed Cáis na Tíre and truffle. The truffle adds a mild nuttiness, but not much else. You’d need proper Périgord black or Alba white for that. The mushrooms do most of the talking, muffling the cheese – and not, I’m assured, with the help of truffle oil.
Then comes the plate of peas and vinegar (€11.50). It sounds a bit conceptual, but it’s excellent: fresh peas, bright purée, pickled onion, redcurrants – sharp, clean and quietly clever.
We order a bottle of Brouilly (€49.95) – light, soft red fruit, slightly chilled. The wine list is mostly French, with about 30 by-the-glass options and a few heavy hitters. Don’t come here looking for pét-nat, orange wine or crunchy low-intervention stuff. This list is focused on the classics.
Jammet’s mixed grill (€32.50) comes as a skewer of four meats – chorizo, pork belly, wagyu patty and lamb chop – on a sticky reduction. It’s piping hot, properly seasoned and enough to fill you up, but an order of champ on the side is essential (€8), butter-heavy and perfect.
The lemon sole de la “Dubedat” (€30.50) is steamed – or something like it – I’d rather it was grilled, or swimming in butter. The sauce – creamy, dotted with mussels and leeks, slicked with a bright green dill oil – is fine, but the dish lacks energy. We find ourselves staring at the next table’s mulligatawny chicken pie (€64.50 for two), being demolished with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for affairs. Golden-topped, burnished with fat, clearly a cousin of the cock-a-leekie pie McAllister does at Spitalfields. That’s the order next time.
Dessert is rice pudding with rhubarb and custard (€10), served warm in a teacup – jam at the bottom, a spoon of custard on top. It is like something the kitchen staff would make for themselves before service – and that’s a good thing.
There’s no doubt the idea behind this menu – reimagining lost Dublin dishes through a literary and historical lens – is a strong one. It’s a rare example of a concept that doesn’t cave under the weight of its own cleverness. You’re not made to feel smart for spotting the reference, or stupid for missing it. The thread holds because the kitchen doesn’t pull on it too hard.
This new iteration of The Pig‘s Ear works – not because it performs history, but because it quietly cooks its way through it. Some dishes do more than that – the peas, the champ, the rice pudding – all restrained and sharp. Others, like the boxty, feel muted, like the literary reference made it to the pass before the flavour of the cheese did.
It’s not a thrill ride, and it’s not meant to be. But if you want to taste what Dublin might have eaten – or dreamed of eating – a century ago, this is where to start.
Dinner for two with a bottle of wine and 12.5 per cent service charge was €174.83.
The verdict: A nostalgic new menu steeped in literary nods, old recipes and quietly confident cooking.
Food provenance: Kish Fish, Glenmar, Mcloughlin’s meat, FX Buckley, Bertram Salters free-range chicken and Caterway.
Vegetarian options: Boxty pancake, peas and vinegar, and main course of the earth garlic, crisp onions and mushroom truffles.
Wheelchair access: No accessible room or toilet.
Music: Background music in a lively room.
