Raising the bar

Despite being wary of advance fanfare, our critic was blown away by the superb fare at the new Jean-Georges at The Leinster in D2

I’ve never been the type of critic that’s influenced by gushing press releases or fawning invitations but, I have to say, with Jean-Georges at The Dean Group’s new hotel The Leinster, the experience lived up to the hype. When most people think of celebrity chefs, the first names that probably spring to mind are Gordon Ramsay or Marco Pierre White.

I’d wager that not many people here — apart from high-flyers, industry insiders and box-ticker foodies — will have heard of Jean-Georges Vongerichten who, while not quite as prolific as Mickey D’s, has 13 restaurants in New York City alone, his flagship being his eponymous 2-Michelin Star restaurant on Central Park West. However, even the best are rebuked by the rubber-tyre man in case they get too uppity, for this was 3-Star until 2018 when they stripped him down to 2-Star. Anyway, Michelin always like to cause a furore, so I don’t put any meas on that.

All in all, with collabs outside of New York, he has close to 60 restaurants, including in the hot spot US cities of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami Beach, Nashville, and worldwide ranging from the Caribbean island of St Bart’s to Morocco to Tokyo and London at The Connaught hotel.

Vongerichten, you understand, won’t be cooking your dinner at this elegant rooftop restaurant, he and his team flew in to fine tune the set-up. The man on the ground here is Ross Bryans, whose culinary pedigree includes being senior sous under 3-Michelin Star chef Clare Smyth at Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road; head chef at Pollen Street Social and Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud.

Unlike many classically trained French chefs, who tend to stick to a French repertoire, Alsace-born Vongerichten was influenced by his years working in Bangkok, Singapore and

Hong Kong, taking his sophisticated fusion cuisine to a higher level than anything we’ve seen here previously in the ‘casual’ arena — so it’s time to step it up, chaps. Everything is clean, clear, light, bright and colourful with subtle sweet, sour and lightly spiced flavours. It’s happy food and a joy to eat. My friend, the fashionista, declared it the best she’d ever had and, believe me, that’s saying something. On top of all that, prices aren’t off the wall.

Appetisers in general run from €12-€19 but, if you want to blow the bank a bit, try the extraordinary ‘egg toast, caviar, herbs’ (€48) — a finger sandwich of cheese-like sous vide egg yolks, topped with caviar. We ordered three appetisers-cum-small-plates to share. The first was a superb Chinese-style bowl of finely diced scallop tartare (€18) in a plum sesame sauce, to be eaten wrapped in the surrounding shiso leaves on kohlrabi wafers. The second plate held Frenchstyle chargrilled baby artichokes (€15) with blobs of rose saffron aioli, fennel fronds and lemon, and the third was a trio of divine Indian-spiced, finely minced chicken samosas (€14) with cilantro yoghurt.

Mains (€24-€48) included grilled lamb chops with a smoked chilli glaze and roasted asparagus, while a whole roasted cauliflower was Moroccan style with turmeric tahini, za’atar, pomegranate and dark molasses. There were two pasta dishes also (€22-€25) — a finely minced mushroom walnut bolognese and rigatoni with meatballs.

We were lured by an excellent

whole native lobster (€58), shelled and served Thai style on squares of crunchy celeriac and a green curry sauce, while our second equally impressive plate held a rectangle of firm wild turbot (€38), with the finest black crust of nuts and seeds, served in a sweet and sour jus. With these, we had sides of perfectly grilled asparagus and French fries with herbs, very reasonably priced at €6 each.

We finished sharing a lovely, light and refreshing citrus pavlova (€12) with a bloodorange sorbet. Resisting cocktails at €16, with just a modest glass of a Paddy McKillen’s own Chateau La Coste ‘Le Blanc’ 2022 (€10), and a glass of Chateau Cissac, Haut Médoc 2017 (€14), plus service, our bill came to €210.

There’s also a tasting menu with all the goodies, including the caviar, at €138pp. ●

Jean-Georges

The Leinster,

7 Mount Street Lower, Dublin 2 Call: (01) 233-6000 theleinster.ie