Parnell Square looked dismal and windswept with scraps of leaves flying by and not a sinner in sight. We scuttled gratefully down the steps to Chapter One, the restaurant below the Writers Museum which was once a cheerless cafe and is now a restaurant that is building itself an excellent reputation. Lights glowed through the windows and warm colours welcomed us in a long hallway that makes you feel as though you are going to someone's house for dinner.
"Come in, come; sit down and have a drink," said the maitre d' and we were ushered into a big, comfortable lounge with huge, midnight-blue sofas, soft lighting and books scattered on tables. We sat down beside a funky backlit stained-glass window of Joyce, Beckett and the boys. "And if you can name all of them before the evening is out I'll pay your bill!" said the maitre d', maybe mistaking us for the some of the English psychiatrists who, we found later, were due in for a big group dinner.
It was a good start, though and we sank into a warm, enveloping atmosphere. It's quiet, but there's none of that deathly reverential hush that you get in terribly expensive restaurants. "It's a bit like Locks," Maria said appreciatively, Locks being her favourite restaurant. It is like Locks, only bigger, and it turned out the food is just as good, if not better and it's cheaper by a long way.
Though it was around nine there was no rushing us to the table and our maitre d' suggested a glass of mulled wine to start with. Maria and Anne brightened considerably and loosened their pashminas as two small but deliciously scented glasses wafted their way towards them. The party season had begun and we bucked up considerably.
The mulled wine, a beautiful shade of purpley red, and with no hint of old tea dregs to it, had been made earlier in the evening for the striking nurses outside the Rotunda, because they were blue with the cold, we were told. The restaurant gets a lot of medical business, what with the Rotunda and Mater so close, and from pharmaceutical companies, hence the eagerly-awaited psychiatrists. And mulled wine was just the start of the hot drinks. I'll tell you later about the amazing Irish coffees that involve six-foot flames.
The warm wine and the comfortable chairs and the sound of laughter coming from the restaurant through the archway gave the evening a tremendous kick-start and we were soon in flying form. After a suitable loll in the lounge we were shown through to the dining room which is in fact two big rooms divided by a wall, with twin arches so that one gets a view from one room to the other. Our room was painted a deep blue with gilt-framed pictures on the wall and a warm carpet underfoot. These rooms used to be cellars but you wouldn't know it, apart from the vaulted ceilings. Again, the impression was warm and homely - that is, homely in a big-oldhouse way.
Our round table was beautifully set with linen and sparkling glasses though the napkins were disappointingly limp - no starch, which is a sin. Immediately we were served with a "cappucino" of frothy chicken soup in a coffee cup. It was surprisingly rich and warm and you could skip a starter if this was on the menu. We weren't stinting ourselves, though. My pork and crabmeant ravioli was not one but two giant ravioli in a light cream sauce scattered with lentils and sitting on a bed of fresh spinach. This tasted so light and divine that in my haste to share it with the others I dropped bits of it over the tablecloth. Our French waitress quietly came and laid a napkin over the offending stains without the least fuss or hint of disapproval.
Maria's prawn wontons were piled up in a neat square, like a game of Jenga. These were perfectly crisp on the outside, sweet and tender inside and there were lots of them. I've had a similar dish in a far more expensive restaurant where you get three. Anne's deep-fried buffalo mozzarella sounded good but in fact was the least interesting dish. The mozzerella was bland and chewy and it hadn't heated up at all in the frying. She did far better with her main course of stuffed chicken breast served with upstanding macaroni in a delectable cream sauce. Sounds odd but it looked great and she said it was "fabulous".
My rump of lamb on a rosti cake was better still: several slices of lean lamb heaped on a creamed potato that then sat on the crisped round of rosti. The combination of flavours and textures was perfect - though again, this was a very big serving, particularly as we were talking our heads off and allowing the food to go cold. Maria had brill off the bone, again with a light cream sauce and tiny fresh vegetables. The creamed potatoes and spinach were hardly touched which was a terrible waste and if we hadn't been so immersed in gossip I would have asked for a doggy bag.
Meanwhile, both rooms had filled up and all the English psychiatrists were sitting down with nosebags on. A tall, antipodean waiter wheeled a flambe trolley around the room, making those inflammatory Irish coffees. This is a bit of a showstopper - he pours the whiskey into a pan then lights it up and flames shoot up to the ceiling, regularly setting of the alarm in the museum upstairs, according to the maitre d'. At one stage we thought the table of eight next to us was going to go up in smoke. "Jaysus, you won't have to shave for a week," said one of the group to the woman nearest the blaze, which wasn't very gallant. When it came to our turn - and we had to have one - the alarm duly went off upstairs.
WE definitely didn't need dessert but what the hell . . . My chocolate tart, recommended by the waitress as the best thing on the menu, was especially dense and dark with a crunchy shortcrust shell and a layer of nuts under the chocolate adding bite. It came with a perfect ball of red fruit sorbet although a jug of cream would have finished it off perfectly. Maria fell on her individual cheesecake as though she hadn't had a bite all evening. It had a lovely, buttery base and a very thin layer of cream cheese mixture under a cloak of berries. A tiny, show-off tuile basket was filled with what tasted like a lime and ginger ice but could have been something entirely different. Anne's plum crumble tasted as it sounded, round and rich.
After all that we could just about manage coffees, and Anne volunteered to have the Irish one. It was gone in a flash. The food was so good that we didn't finish our bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which was a few pounds cheaper than I've seen it on other menus. We staggered back up the steps to the car, amazed to have found such a classy place that wasn't totally dominated by dull businessmen and shrieking blondes.
With pre-dinner drinks, one bottle of wine and that Irish coffee, the bill came to a £101.
Chapter One 18/19 Parnell Square Dublin 1 Tel 01 8732266
Orna Mulcahy can be contacted at omulca@irish-times.ie
