To dine for: Sun, sea and bland

In our walking gear we felt underdressed for the King Sitric fish restaurant, and I was too tired to shepherd my flock up the pier to investigate Aqua. So it was with considerable relief that I found a free table at Ivans. Although I’d eaten many times in the adjacent Oyster Bar, I’d never been in the full restaurant. I recognised the manager: it was Niall Sabongi, son of the venerable George of George’s Bistro fame. His dad is, apparently, looking for another venture. “He’s 72 now but he’s getting a bit bored,” Niall says.

The restaurant is named after Ivan Beshoff, a Russian sailor who, after taking part in the Potemkin mutiny that helped to unseat Tsar Nicholas II, migrated to Dublin to found a dynasty that even today is involved in seafaring matters, albeit as wholesalers and retailers of fish and shellfish.

A long bar runs the full width of the dining area and some of the tables are perched upon a dance floor of the minimalist nightclub variety. The room does look as though it could be converted, within minutes, to host a knees-up. Adjacent tables emptied shortly after we sat down and, 20 minutes later, I couldn’t help but notice that three of them still hadn’t been wiped down and relaid.

A young, pleasant waitress brought the menu and helped us with selection. There was a two- or three-course set-menu option, operating from 4pm until 7pm; Lola opted for this. Milady and I took two courses each off the à la carte, while Sian opted for a brace of starters.

The wine list offered little of interest, at least in the lower echelons. In the event we chose a bottle of white grenache from southern France. Somewhat underchilled, it proved an unhappy marriage of tinned fruit and stainless steel, and it was not worth the €24 asking price.

The chowder was well-received, the moules mariniere applauded by both myself and Sian. Lola’s hot-smoked trout starter was greatly appreciated. Milady liked her fillet of hake and had good words to say about the accompanying bed of mash and asparagus spears.

I’d chosen the fish and chips. The latter were very good indeed. The fish, haddock, was lustrous and perfectly cooked, and the batter sidestepped the “concrete overcoat with a foam lining” texture that’s all too common among Dublin’s fish-frying fraternity. The scrunched-up garden peas masquerading as mushies were superfluous to requirements, the more so as they were lukewarm.

The waitress brought a basket of bread to accompany the mussels. There were three varieties: brown (excellent), white (slightly stale) and a sweet bread with raisins in it (curious) which we ignored.

Sian’s second starter, the “seafood array”, cost €15. Expensive, we thought — until it arrived. Dublin Bay prawns, seasoned crab meat, ceviche of scallops, a trio of gambas and a slice of home-smoked Irish salmon provided the interest; pickled cucumber and micro-greens, the garnish.

It was a goodly plateful that had the landlocked lassie, who lives as far away from the sea as it is possible to get in England, drooling.

Lola’s free-range chicken, anointed with pesto and adorned with “wings” of sliced aubergine, was fine as far as it went. We did think it somewhat mean that, as this was a three-course set-menu offering, Ivans hadn’t thrown in a token slab of spud. Another €3.95 for a side of baby potatoes or skinny chips would escalate the price of the meal to €30.95. There’s some serious food to be had for that sort of money, not least the vastly more interesting €33.60 three-courses-and-coffee Sunday lunch on offer, in nicer surroundings, a short stroll up the road at King Sitric.

For the record, Lola’s dessert was Eton mess, the restaurant cliche of 2009 and still hanging around on far too many menus. There isn’t much that can go wrong with bashed meringue, and strawberries and cream, unless you use the sort of strawberries that were in the shops at Christmas.

After the Eton mess comes the crunch. Why, all through the meal, did I have this escalating sense of ennui? The fish, the main attraction in eating somewhere where trawlers are parked up at the end of the nearby pier, was as fresh as you’d find it, and I love fish. So how come I found Ivans a yawn-fest?

Perhaps it was because, despite the cloth napkins and decent stemware, trendy lampshades and the dance floor, Ivans has the aura of an upwardly mobile chipper rather than that of a restaurant. It starts with the menu, which doesn’t strike me as a chef’s production. There’s no wit, personality or imagination, no endearing quirkiness. Ivans’ bill of fare reads like it was composed by an accountant. It’s bland and, worse yet, blandness seems to permeate elsewhere.

Overall, I found the operation sterile, even though at €131.50 for four it was relatively good value. Top-quality restaurants, upmarket or down, exude personality: there’s a commonality between restaurant manager Stéphane Robin and his cadre of well-drilled youths in Patrick Guilbaud and the jolly pizza-dough jugglers in Dublin’s Manifesto.

Whatever happened to the spirit of the sea dog who made his way from Odessa to Dublin’s northside? His descendants could use a drop of it.

MERE MORSELS

Ice, ice baby

Joanna Lovegrove and Clare Holman came up with the concept for Chilly Moo frozen yogurt after tiring of searching for nutritious treats for their children. The Dublin-based pair’s product is available in three flavours, and is sweetened using real fruit juice rather than preservatives.

chillymoo.ie

Wine geese

Discover the country’s rich history in international wine-making at a special event in Ballymaloe House, Co Cork, this Thursday. Winemaker Caro Feely, right, who has Irish roots, is one of the speakers and will be discussing her book Grape Expectations, about her family’s vineyard adventure in France. Tickets cost €10.

ballymaloe.ie

Perfect sense

Visitors to this year’s Taste of Dublin (June 14-17) can try a tasting plate cooked by 10 of Ireland’s most acclaimed chefs — including Oliver Dunne and Derry Clarke, right — but they will have to eat it in the dark. Guests at Dine in the Dark will be served by blind waiting staff as part of a campaign by charity Kanchi to change our perceptions of disabled people.

tasteofdublin.ie