Old Master?

Nicos has been a fixture on the Dublin restaurant scene for decades. Peter Flanagan finds out if it still has the genius of old.

Restaurants are ten a penny these days. It seems that they appear and disappear with disconcerting regularity. In the New York of the book American Psycho, a restaurant that Patrick Bateman (the main character) simply must have a table in at the start, is a vacant lot by the end. Dublin is getting a bit like that, albeit without the psychotic serial killer.

Fortunately, in a restaurant world of “here today, gone tomorrow”, Nicos is the exception. It has been around for years and although a recent refit has changed the décor dramatically - the red velvet is gone and replaced with a modern mixture of brown and white - the ambience has changed little, and that is a very good thing. Therefore it’s a real pity that the food does not seem to be quite what it was.

Our coats were taken by a polite young waiter and we were seated in what was a practically empty restaurant, but it was early on a Monday night, and it would fill up later on. Very few restaurants can pack them in on a cold Monday night but Nico’s does a pretty good job of it.

Our starters arrived promptly and they were excellent. My minestrone soup was packed full of flavour. It’s easy to make a decent bowl of minestrone but hard to make a top class one. This was near top class. Plenty of vegetables and the soup was just the right thickness. It probably helped that it was freezing outside. The paté on the other hand was very average. Too much of it and very garlicky, it is something to be avoided.

The main courses arrived a short time after – a pheasant breast drowned in a tomato sauce and a fillet steak. While the steak was excellent, it soon became clear why there was so much sauce on the pheasant. It was dry as a bone and had little flavour. Think Christmas turkey three days later and that’s the level of dryness you are talking about. Fortunately the steak was excellent – almost burnt on the outside but fabulously juicy on the inside. When I order a steak medium this is what I’m talking about. The vegetables – green beans and cauliflower au gratin – were overdone and the gratin dominated the flavour of everything it touched. Lashings of thin cut chips made up for the vegetables though and when the meal was washed down with a fabulous valpolicella, the problems with the pheasant and the cauliflower were almost forgotten.

By now the restaurant had filled up substantially and the piano that sits just inside the main door had been opened. This is the part I usually enjoy most about Nico’s. The soft, unidentifiable, music is perfect for a relaxing meal for two. Unfortunately tonight we were greeted with such classics as the Toploader’s “Dancing In The Moonlight” and “Are we Human” by The Killers. While the music was well played as you’d expect, when you spend more time trying to identify the tunes than enjoying your meal, it certainly detracts from the overall experience. In any case, pop songs did not seem to fit with the mostly middle aged clientele. It was the kind of music you’d expect in a Burger King, not the venerable Nico’s.

The waiters left us to our own devices for just the right length of time before offering us dessert menus. Gateau Nico’s is a sponge cake with custard and chocolate cream and it is magnificent. The custard and chocolate combine perfectly to produce terrific flavours. I can’t recommend it enough. Coffee is, as you’d expect from an Italian restaurant, superb.

When the bill came, as expected, it wasn’t cheap. €137 for two people is a little on the high side but we didn’t hold back. The steak and the pheasant were two of the most expensive mains on the menu while our bottle of wine was at the higher end of the scale.

Overall Nico’s has definitely slipped in quality. It gives the reputation of a place living of its reputation rather than trying to maintain excellence. It is still worth going to but don’t expect it to be a life changing experience. This is no longer a place Pat Bateman would kill for a table in.

Nicos, 53 Dame Street, Dublin 2. Telephone: +353 (0)1 677 3062