…SOAKING UP JOANNE TOOLAN’S SUMMER-SUN PICKS
Ihadn’t realised quite how much I missed restaurants over the past months until I sat down in one once again. I find it hard to put my finger on quite what it is. Perhaps it’s just the sense of occasion, maybe it’s the knowledge that they won’t get you to do the washing up. It certainly had a lot to do with looking at the top of a wine list and thinking, ‘Oh, a Campari spritz. Now that seems like a very happy and wholesome idea.’
And so it proved. It was a warm evening of early summer – one of the first – and I had walked up to Stillorgan from Monkstown, Google Maps taking in me on a clever route that snaked along little alleyways and through housing estates.
When I sat down on RIBA’s terrace, I was in need of refreshment and this combination of Prosecco (which I rarely drink) and the sweet and bitter character of Campari (€7.90) with lots of ice and a straw, really underlined the true role of the restaurant: not just to provide sustenance, but also pleasure.
RIBA has been a hugely successful neighbourhood restaurant, serving a broad South Dublin constituency with a small but reassuringly Italian menu and, long before such facilities became the must-have restaurant accessory, a big, airy terrace outside, covered in Astroturf.
The menu pushes some of my buttons. For example, the nostalgia one, with melon and ham. For younger people, I should explain that this was seriously exotic in the Dublin of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was good to see it again, the prosciutto partnered with the exotically fragrant liscio melon. My simplicity button got pushed too. What’s not to like about ‘Pork chop
THE MENU PUSHES SOME OF MY BUTTONS, FOR EXAMPLE THE NOSTALGIA ONE
the fra diavolo sauce was reticent but spicy enough, and the fries were crisp. We agreed that, imperfections notwithstanding, this dish offered good value at €19.
I liked the sound of ‘Spinach & ricotta ravioli, peas, pine nuts’ (€16) and I knew that they make their own pasta here. Now, I have had silkier pasta but look at that price! The filling was generous, the peas were the loveliest little succulent petits pois and the pine nuts... well, I don’t think they added anything. This is a classic dish, of course, and it’s very often served with browned butter and crisped sage leaves – a combination that really sings.
At RIBA, it came with a sort of meat jus, or a light gravy if you prefer, and while it worked I believe that the classic approach would have hung together a lot better.
But for €16? This was a very decent dish.
Desserts (€6.75) at RIBA are not calculated to frighten the horses. A generous tiramisù was at the sweeter end of the spectrum for me but pleasantly indulgent, while a lemon posset with strawberries was simple and perfect.
We enjoyed RIBA’s food and sense of hospitality but I feel that there’s a tendency, occasionally, to complicate things that are better left alone.
Having said that such complication is no great hardship!
IT WOULD be most inappropriate to carp about prices when restaurants are really struggling, but RIBA’s seem very reasonable in any case. €16 and €18 for good, substantial pasta main courses? Bring it on!
THE premises have been owned by the Borza family since 1963.