Andrew Heron and Damien Grey's tiny restaurant tucked away in Blackrock Market is serving up properly exciting modern food. Welcomed with open arms by food-loving locals when it opened early in 2016, it soon became a destination in its own right.
There is an uncompromising tone to the offering - an essential given the restrictions of the premises, and nobody seems to mind. The wine list is a work in progress and, although you will be asked about any food allergies/intolerances/particular dislikes at the time of booking, there’s no choice when it comes to the food: a five-course tasting menu is offered and it is priced at around €50. Expect a couple of additional amuses, but the courses are small, so the quantity of food is not excessive.
The menu is strictly seasonal - many of the ingredients are wild and foraged - and Damien Grey (an Australian chef with fifteen years of experience under his belt, most recently at Chapter One) promises that dishes will never be repeated, to stave off boredom and complacency in the kitchen. He is cultivating relationships with growers and foragers, to access interesting ingredients, and his cooking demonstrates a high level of technical skill and and creativity. You can watch him at work in the open kitchen and the food is complex, inventive, subtle, excellent.
Two stand-out dishes give a sense of the kind of food to expect: truffle custard served with duck jerky - intensely-flavoured dried out shards of duckiness, and grated white truffle adorned with a sprig of chickweed and squid ink salt, and chocolate five ways - ganache, dehydrated, mousse, praline bar and popping candy, with orange marmalade, espresso, dehydrated milk and Cadbury's drinking chocolate.
It’s labour-intensive, creative, and technically ambitious food and, with the warmly engaging Andrew Heron supervising every detail front of house, you may expect very personable and efficient service.
But don’t go expecting the place itself to be of the same quality as the food because the premises are unprepossessing - the food and the people, rather than the room, are what make Heron & Grey special.
