Luna eclipse... but no panic, new chef Vish sure knows his spaghetti with truffle

THERE’S nowhere quite like Luna and despite the downside of being expensive, it’s a place that keeps drawing me back. It’s not just the food, but the look and the feel of the place, the fact that Declan Maxwell is one of the best front-of-house people in the business, the retro bar with backlit Campari bottles casting a rosy glow, the low lights, the general sense of having travelled back to somewhere off Madison Avenue in the days of Mad Men.

Well, you can imagine the effect on me of the news that Luna was getting a new chef.

One doesn’t want certain fixed points in one’s world getting changed. But, having given Vish Sumputh (ex Chapter One) a while to settle in, I decided to see how Luna was faring.

It’s a restaurant with a lot of regulars, attracted, no doubt, by Luna’s hint of loucheness. It’s the kind of place where a very dry martini doesn’t seem such an outlandish idea at all. The kind of place, which in one’s mind’s eye, is wreathed in the blue smoke of king size Chesterfields.

Those regulars are, like most of us, creatures of habit, so it was no surprise to see that Vish had retained many of the old favourites.

Unless you’re running a restaurant that makes a central theme of it, it’s always best to avoid frightening the horses. And, in my case, the scariest thing was the possibility of losing the spaghetti with truffle, a dish for which I would walk several miles, possibly even barefoot.

But, thank heaven, there it was, still on the menu.

But first, we indulged in that dry martini. The bar stocks only one gin, Martin Miller’s, and there’s a strong argument that if you’re going to limit the gin supply, this is one of the strongest candidates for the solitary spirit.

Beef carpaccio set the tone for our dinner at Luna: simplicity, no messing about, nothing done just for effect, no cheffy vanities.

The carpaccio itself did what it’s meant to do – melt in the mouth and deliver that raw, minerally, sanguine tang. With tiny charred white turnips, gentle horseradish and pickled quail eggs, this was a classic with sensible, thoughtful embellishments.

Watercress risotto was brilliantly, dazzlingly green, packed with the distinctive earthy, slightly mustardy taste of the plant. There was more: plump, salty Irish snails, baby broad beans and little salty explosions of caper. This was fabulous, frankly, and the texture lay, in true Italian fashion, between solidity and soup, by far the most liquid risotto that I’ve had in Dublin and quite possibly the best.

Anyway, that spaghetti with truffle. It was still on the menu, but it had changed! And the change was rather wonderful. It was still creamy and deeply truffley (this is a very simple dish; even I could cook it, possibly). But there was less spaghetti. And – sing hallelujah! – there was more truffle. And not just grated truffle but slices of truffle too. Was it worth €30? Look, I’ve spent more than €30 on boring steaks and tarted up fish. Of course, it was worth it.

Our only criticism of ragu Bolognese with agnolotti alla Parmigiana (think Bol sauce dotted with little pasta parcels of Parmesan) was the saltiness. This was too much for us, approaching levels of salinity found in the Dead Sea. This was a shame as the ragu was long-cooked and dark and fabulously intense. Outstanding, indeed. The soft pedal on the salt would have yielded much pleasure.

So, how was the bill? With our cocktails and a good bottle of red wine, plus mineral water which was much needed, it came to €160 which, by any standards is steep. But that’s Luna. You go knowing that it will dear, but you also know that the cooking will be all about great raw materials that are handled with confidence born of experience. And nothing flashy.

Sometimes change is good.