Located above Donnybrook Fair, one of the city’s smartest foodstores, Avalon is in good company.
As soon as you make your way up the stairs to the elegantly fitted out, light-filled dining room, you know this is the real deal. Owner, Sheerin Wilde is a familiar face on the Dublin dining scene, as former Maitre d’ of the Wild Goose Grill in Ranelagh, and he is here to greet every guest as they come in. He’s a man who knows how to remember a name, pick a great wine and run a restaurant.
Enjoy a pre-dinner drink at the low-tabled seating area or head straight to the linen clad dining tables, where plush upholstery and fresh flowers gives the place a sense of occasion.
Service is polished, giving the impression that the wait staff here are professionals rather than part-timers. Menus offer innovative choices, perhaps starters of steamed Irish lobster dumplings with fennel salad and grapefruit ponzu or Kilkeel crab salad with apple, lemongrass jelly and crispy yucca.
Mains include a good mix of crowd-pleasers: beef is well represented, from dry-aged ribeye to Chateaubriand (for two) to roast halibut with pistachio herb aioli. Everything is, painstakingly presented and beautifully cooked.
There is an excellent selection of 18 wines, offered by the glass and pichet here, alongside an exhaustive and imaginative selection by the bottle. Finish up with a simple, spot-on Affogato or perhaps a house speciality– the dark chocolate truffle slice with griottine cherry and honeycomb.
With a lovely celebratory mood in the air, Avalon feels like a special occasion kind of place. A lucky one for locals to have on their doorstep but definitely a destination worth making a journey to, for something that little bit special.
