Helen Lucy Burke reviews Kevin Thornton's first outing at the Fitzwilliam Hotel
You knew Kevin Thornton's former restaurant in Portobello? Right! To imagine his new one, Thornton's in the Fitzwilliam Hotel on Stephen's Green, just focus on every dear detail you remember, and then imagine its exact opposite. You're there? Good. (One exception: the Ladies' loo is still pokey.) Anyone who knew it as Peacock Alley under his predecessor – the Incredible Sulk, Conrad Gallagher – can use the same technique.
My itemized description is for those who never patronised Thornton's, either because they could not afford to – valid unless they spent their recreation money on booze – or because they thought a take-away Indian curry could not be improved on. And if you want to imagine the look of Kevin's servings, think of what the Russian jeweller Fabergé might do with food.
ARRIVAL:If you are driving, take a left down a weeshy lane just before the hotel. By mistake I turned into the College of Surgeons car park (and I bet you will too).
AMBIANCE: Not a scintilla of the previous incumbent remains (thank God). Thornton's Portobello enterprise was quirkily decorated: the new place is in almost freezingly good taste. Walls painted a neutral shade are hung with neutral-shaded paintings which look silvery sideways on. The carpet is red. Tables are spaced well apart in the main room; a smaller, more intimate room with a large bar, which we rather preferred, is behind it. A startling porthole gives live-action glimpses into the kitchen, with a censorship blind which can be lowered from inside. I brooded on possible situations which would require a blank out: tempers lost, utter mayhem with copper saucepans flying, filleting knives for two, coffee for one. Chefs are a passionate lot. And that is what I missed in the dining-room ambiance – a decor showing passion or eccentricity to match Kevin's cooking, down from the days of the Wine Vault. There's too much pastel good taste and not enough fun, though daylight suits it far better. A set of violently coloured paintings by Australian aborigines might do the trick. "The restaurant is made for man, not man for the restaurant."
ATMOSPHERE: Very subdued and nervous-whispery among the customers, at least until we hit the scene. Even my host addressed me in tones suited to a pinnacle moment in a church ceremony. After I had screamed at him not to conform, we proceeded in normal uninhibited tones; by the end of the evening the surrounding tables, emboldened, talked almost normally. A completely full dining-room would have helped the atmosphere.
CLIENTELE: Trevor, my host, could have modeled for a fashion shoot and I had done my poor best with an amber necklet. Our surprise was great to see two men wearing tracksuit bottoms, while one female companion had obviously dressed from a well-known chain store in well-worn garments. When I remarked on this to Kevin some days later, he seemed astonished at my noticing such a thing and said "Any dress is fine with me. They were obviously ideal customers, who put food before fashion and style."
SERVICE: Luxury-class on the Concorde. Olivier, that suave divinity, presides and his crew could not be faulted. A wish need only be hinted and Lo! 'tis already on the table. Price Set-price lunch is €28 for 2 courses, €39 for 3 - service is extra. Dinner is á la carte, each dish individually priced and most starters begin at €30. Main courses – Phew! The eight-course surprise menu (by table only) is set at, oh dear! €120 per person, service extra.
Recently Marion Finucane, weeping with laughter, read us a very pretty piece on the radio about an incident in Saudi Arabia. (I laughed too.) A convicted murderer and drug dealer was hauled to the scaffold where the noose was adjusted around his neck. At that interesting point he had a massive heart-attack. The noose was untied; the murderer was whisked off to hospital for treatment. When he was quite recovered he would be returned for hanging. The situation at the new Thornton's is not an exact parallel, but a hot-line to St James's Hospital might be a good idea for patrons who pass out on seeing the prices. In my own case – and I was not paying – I could feel the blood leaving my heart in a surge when I studied the dinner menu.
You will find all Kevin's trademark ingredients served lavishly, truffles and foie gras as standards, and dishes of the season, such as grouse, which are rarely served anywhere else. Furthermore his portions are not stinted. Yes, even humble potatoes made an appearance in a capacious dish and were pressed on us with smiling indications not to hang back. I asked how he or his staff would respond if a customer asked for more: "We'd give them more. But it would take time, as things are cooked to order, and it would have to be within reason. More potatoes? "Absolutely." I gather that this means no double portions of truffles et al. Kevin admits freely that he likes cooking only with expensive luxury ingredients, "Fish, all wild fish, and especially shrimp if I can get them." Those who know the prices of truffles, prawns, and of pretty nearly any fish that swims within reach of a net or a long-line, will realise that his margin of profit is not high at all. His wines offer a fuller selection than before and he has brought down the prices.
THE MEAL And so to our dinner. Was it perfect? No. Nearly perfect? Yes. I had allowed Trevor first run at the menu. He picked all the dishes I had my eye on and they had the edge on mine. Our amuse-gueule, free, came first, in the form of a coiled thing like a minute Swiss roll with a stiff brown rectangle propped against it and a green basil sauce. It was an elegant little joke: the roll was made of sole, and the rectangle was a refined intellectual chip. Genuine delicious Fish and Chip, you understand, but not as Beshoff would serve it. Kevin, it grieves me to say that the chef of the Four Seasons in London, Eric de Blonde, trumps this by serving miniature fish 'n' chips in a miniaturized sheet of newspaper. The starters were priced at €35 each, yes, €35: for Trevor, sauted foie gras with scallops, cep sauce (served with warm brioche). Ceps (in French cepes) are big shiny brown mushrooms which look like glazed buns. It was faultless, starting with the luscious appearance on the white plate and the divine smell, and then conquering the palate not only with the barely-cooked foie gras but triumphing with scallops which streaked ahead of all other scallops I have ever stolen off a friend's plate. Ah oh, the cep sauce – Trevor's face shone. But! My eye had strayed to ravioli of lobster with quinoa (I knew about this; the seed of a South American member of the chenopodium family) and lobster consommé. I queried Olivier as to the ratio of lobster to ravioli, having been unhappily deceived as to this in other restaurants. Lots of lobster, he assured me, lots and lots and lots. But not lots and lots of ravioli, in fact only a single raviolo, a mighty dumpling containing lots and lots of very tasteless lobster. Even a gleaming piece extracted from the claw which flanked the dumpling was no great shakes. And the pasta encasing the lobster filling was thick and rubbery; if this is the consistency absolutely needed to hold the ingredients in place, I would scrap the whole concept. And yes, I know any lobster is a toss-up as to how it tastes. A tiny present from Kevin was an intermezzo mounded with the foam of a sabayon at one side, almost El Bulli style, flanking three apiece of what we were told were prawns. And so were the three of them shaped, but as I ate I doubted. They tasted like prawns which had become divinities, but the texture was so different, so meltingly dissolvably different that I had to get Olivier to confirm that they were prawns. "The difference is that they are fresh," said he. I shook my head; fresh prawns and I are old friends. "And dry cooked for 15 seconds," he added. Now I know. It was a main course of fish for both of us at an identical €48. Trevor scored highest; he had Atlantic halibut with courgette soufflé, potato purée, truffle sauce, and I had fillet of wild seabass with fennel and herb risotto, asparagus squid ink sauce. Now Kevin, here is another serious fault. Will you not leave us some bread to do a bit of vulgar mopping? Trevor cleared his plate to the point where it could have been put back clean in the cupboard, but had he not covertly used his finger, some of that extraordinary truffle sauce would have been left. Likewise with mine, though I had less inhibitions and openly licked my finger. The fish was outstanding, the halibut bearing away the palm. To achieve perfection in fish cookery, split second timing is essential, and a kitchen staff poised to seize it 20 seconds before it is done. Each portion was large – I could not finish mine – with taste and texture a brilliant revelation. Halibut is a king of fish – far ahead of turbot I believe – and for anyone who has eaten the seabass so common in restaurants these days, the wild kind is a revelation compared with the flabby muddy specimens raised in cages along the Mediterranean littoral.
The extra little touches, such as T's courgette soufflé which looked like a puffball in the nascent stage of puff, and my faultless risotto, gave excitement. My excitement lay in having a risotto which lived up to its Italian name, instead of being a salty rice-pudding. Trevor's comment on his main course when I invited his opinion was to point silently to his gleaming plate. A lot of Kevin's cooking is invented to make the best use of the best ingredients available on the day. When I asked him, would he describe himself as being in the French tradition of cuisine, the foam of rage flew from his chops (foam lightly dusted with truffle of course and a hint of tarragon) as he replied, "Not French at all. The ingredients are Irish and I'm Irish. Mine is classical cooking, with techniques common to the Mediterranean in direct line of descent from the Ancient Romans who in turn got them from the Greeks." As for the so-called ethnic cooking in Ireland he commented, "It is bastardized." Trevor asked for a plain green salad to refresh his palate, and I asked for two forks and two plates with it. Fits of laughter engulfed us when it was carried towards us. Plain green salad, my granny! Two huge white plates with regular black spots around the rim held a concoction something like a book with one page green and one page green with a red stripe and asparagus tips. I turned the questioning eyes of a dumb beast towards Olivier who kindly told us that this was baby red chard, which started green and developed a red strip in adolescence. The black spots were, of course, minced truffle. Again our fingers came in useful. (By the by, Kevin, someone had sprinkled on two helpings of salt.) Then a pre-pudding amuse-gueule of variations on the banana: banana and chocolate parfait, banana ice-cream, banana with butterscotch sauce, followed by our real puddings: a fruit salad for Trevor and for me a palette of sorbets which was an exact replica of a painter's palette with the exquisite sorbets in jewel colours. My first champagne sorbet, for instance, and another of deep crimson blackcurrant which was a taste explosion in the mouth. Coffee, petits fours, a bill of €297 to which Trevor added €33 service. Coffee and petits fours had cost €7 each, our wine, a Cotes de Provence, €64. Then a tour of the kitchen and larder and an au revoir embrace. And it was really "till we meet again," for I lunched there four days later. I would like to bring my hammock and live there.
Published in the November 2002 edition of The Dubliner magazine
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