Bastible

Chef-proprietor Barry Fitzgerald has serious form and it shows in confident and deft handling of excellent seasonal ingredients at his much-anticipated neighbourhood restaurant at Leonard’s Corner in Dublin 8.



Having headed the kitchen at London’s much admired gastropub, The Harwood Arms, Barry returned to Ireland to establish Etto as one of Dublin’s finest casual restaurants, before departing to open Bastible with his partner Claremarie Thomas. Conveniently located just across the junction from The Headliner bar, one of the city’s finest purveyors of craft beers, this new addition singlehandedly takes this up-and-coming neighbourhood several more notches along the gentrification scale. 



From the outside, the space is so understated as to be easily overlooked, with just the name and street number stencilled in white against the slate grey wall framing the large window and buzzing dining room within. It’s a small one-roomer restaurant but manages to look bigger thanks to a spare decor style that eschews unnecessary frills, relying instead on a cool palette of slate grey napkins, forest green walls, polished concrete floors and blonde wood tables and bar to offset the central drama of cooking and eating.   



Behind the counter of its open kitchen, a tight team of chefs turn out some exceptionally focused and skilful food. As befits his gastropub background, not to mention stints at St John’s and with the Arbutus group, Fitzgerald excels at extracting big flavours from often humble but always judiciously sourced ingredients.



The short set menu is as un-frilly as the room, with none of the usual name-checking of suppliers that can too often prove little more than lip service. Instead, descriptions are limited to the three or four key flavours on each plate, and provenance is listed on a need-to-know basis: to warn that the game is wild and may contain shot, for example, or to flag stellar products such as Young Buck raw blue farmhouse cheese, often served as a single-item cheese plate with impeccable homemade drop scones and a tart apple jam.



Vegetables are given equal footing to fish, fowl and meat, with the choice of three starters and three mains including interesting vegetarian explorations such as a bold starter of house-smoked baby carrots with chervil, spelt and a fresh cheese made in-house. Indeed, this kitchen does wondrous things with dairy. That creamy hand-churned butter with the homemade sourdough, that buttery-tasting creme fraiche flavoured with thyme and honey and served with the complimentary snack of devilled chicken skins, that ‘potato butter’ with the succulent veal sweetbreads and that brown butter ice-cream with the pain perdu and pineapple: each of them testament to the rewards of in-house skills and attention to detail.



On the plate itself, each element is delivered with the confidence not to overcrowd flavours but rather let each play its part and speak for itself. Which is apt, given that the likes of slow-cooked short rib of beef with wild mushrooms, creamed spinach and Bordelaise sauce (think red wine sauce but with bone marrow for extra oomph) really has to be tasted to appreciate just what a life-affirming dish it can be, especially when served on the bone as a shared main course with a side of sublime mashed potato scented with Jerusalem artichoke.



To wash all this down, a two-page list of European wines offers a mix of reliable classics and interesting off-piste choices, and the helpful and often intriguing descriptions make good starting points for discussion with the well-trained and enthusiastic staff. Should you not be lucky enough to live within strolling distance, a decent selection of wines by the glass will cater for drivers from further afield (the location being not particularly well-served by public transport), while a small but stylish range of wine-based cocktails such as Aperol Spritz are available.



Bastible hit the ground running when it opened in the latter quarter of 2015, and it has been heavily booked ever since, with the usual premium on weekend bookings requiring some long-term vision to get a prime-time table here. The weekend lunch slots are an attractive and less-in-demand alternative, especially on a Sunday for the family-style meal in which the whole table share a selection of snacks and starters before choosing between two main courses.



Alternatively, should you be lucky enough to call yourself a local, or willing to take a punt, it’s worth being aware that a number of seats are held back for walk-in customers, so long as you’re happy to dine at the bar or at a communal table with your food-loving neighbours. And with food, wine and service as charming as this, who wouldn’t be?