When critiquing a place and assessing the cut of its jib, the food is foremost, service a close second and the setting is definitely taken into account. But does a quick scan of the clientele influence any assertion? It certainly helps to determine how a place positions itself in the market and whether it appeals to its desired target. The best of them hit the bullseye effortlessly.
There’s a definite type of customer for La Maison on Castle Market in Dublin, just as much as there is for Grogan’s next door, with its creamy pints and toasted specials, ditto Loose Canon in the diagonal distance, where juicy, crunchy, natty wines are sipped kerbside.
La Maison’s main customer is of a particular vintage. One wouldn’t like to assume, but we surmise the credit card has seen this terminal before. They feel fairly regular, this might be the second or third time eating here this year and it’s only July. They probably have a table they particularly prefer.
They like that the menu rarely changes and already know what they will order. They love the table-side theatre of filleting a whole cooked fish (today it’s black sole).
They are not eating alone. La Maison is a social occasion, so they either have one other person (and it feels more like a lunch date with a pal or colleague rather than a partner) or a group. A trio of ladies who lunch, freshly coiffed from the salon and with Brown Thomas in their sights post-lunch, are in flying form next to us clinking glasses of French rosé.
No matter who we all are, right here on the terrace of this restaurant we’re all of a similar ilk: drawn in by the promise of supple coquilles Saint Jacques bathed in butter and coq au vin. A glass of wine to wash down a weekday lunch date, indulging in a crème brûlée while stirring a teaspoon round a piping hot espresso. Perched en terrasse in a coin mignon, a cute little corner of Dublin 2, there’s something fabulously elegant and impossibly Gallic about a weekday lunch at La Maison.
Coq au vin
BRYAN MEADE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Castle Market is a funny little lane in the city centre. Set between the parallel highways of South William and Drury Streets, watched over at one end by the Georgian townhouse Powerscourt Town Centre with the Victorian-style, red brick covered market, Georges Street Arcade at the other, it’s entirely unique. Right at its heart sits La Maison, a staple on this petit passage for 15 years now, and unmistakable in its signature red, like lips slicked in Chanel Rouge Allure, with its awning-covered terrace and pretty planters out front.
It’s lunchtime on a Thursday and earlier in the week, looking at wide-open online availability, we wondered if we could just chance a table, but luckily we booked ahead –– the terrace is full, right up to the end of service. There are pressed white tablecloths, bamboo patio chairs with woven red and cream rattan and fresh-cut flowers in glass bottles on each table.
We choose two sturdy seafood numbers to start, first a smoked haddock dish comes lavished in a deeply mustardy, sharp beurre blanc topped by a crisp, breadcrumb-coated hen’s egg that explodes its yolk over the lot. Scallops in the shell come basted in a cayenne-spiked garlicky butter with fresh lemon wedges and slices of griddled bread cut into sharply precise rectangles.
Coq au vin wraps you in a big comfort food hug. A deeply concentrated red wine sauce with supremely tender chicken –– skin-on, bone-in — and button mushrooms, salty lardons and baby shallots, alongsidevelvetypomme purée, it’s comfort food at its core but served elegantly.
French fries, ordered on the side, are skin-on, skinny, hand-cut and very well seasoned. Being picky, we wish they were more crisp than soft; however, we make light work of the lot.
The cod main is altogether less successful. Nicely cooked North Atlantic cod fillet, golden-dappled from pan-frying and still holding itself in thick, juicy layers (albeit a bone makes its presence known) comes with a wonderful smattering of early summer petits pois, adding delicate, sweet pop to most mouthfuls.
It’s the other additions that let the dish down. There’s nary a fleck of crab in the crab croquette, just potato stodge filling with a faint crustacean’s whisper. Don’t call it crab if that’s not what it delivers. Likewise, the promised anchovy aioli is just basic garlic aioli — pristine white, not the slight greige hue you might expect when anchovy fillets are whisked into nothingness within a mayonnaise-style sauce. Again, to call this anchovy is overstating it. Caveat emptor.
Desserts are deft takes on classics. An absolutely perfect crème brûlee requires no notes: intense vanilla custard set beneath a shattering ceiling of nicely bitter, dark golden, caramelised sugar. The only oddity is the ramekin sits ceremoniously on an upturned Ikea 365+ square food container bamboo lid. Days later we still can’t quite work out that plating choice.
Tarte au citron is textbook: proper lemon sharpness, zest noticeable in flecks through the set custard, a well-made, short but not dry pastry base with a sprightly little fresh raspberry sorbet alongside.
Service feels atypically French. Our wine has to be chased and fries arrive several minutes beyond mains, but if the service were too à point it wouldn’t have the character or charm it does, and we would take that, including a couple of small missteps, over rigidity or stuffiness any day. Though we don’t order the whole fish of the day to share, we do witness several performances of very skilful table-side filleting.
With Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, a hot shot at the Euros trophy plus the impending Olympics in Paris all falling within July, La Belle France is on the mind and it feels fitting to slip into a space that’s impossibly French in Dublin’s fair city. Now, 15 years on, La Maison feels as at home on Castle Market as ever.
What we ate
Starters
Coquilles Saint Jacques €18.50
Naturally smoked haddock, crispy hen’s egg, mustard beurre blanc €14
Mains and sides
North Atlantic cod fillet, petits pois à la française, crab croquette, anchovy aioli €28
Coq au vin €28.00
French fries €6.00
Desserts
Tarte au citron €9.50
Crème brúlée €9.50
Drinks
Sparkling water €5.50
Sancerre (glass) €16
White burgundy (glass) €10.50
Espresso + double espresso €7
Total: €152.50
If that, then these…
Fancy a French lunch in Ireland? Take three more:
Marcel, Belfast
Unbeatable value and classic French dishes made modern by Niall Duffy;@MarcelBelfast
The French Table, Limerick
Also celebrating 15 years sur place, expect French onion soup and boeuf bourguignon at lunch; @the_french_table_limerick
Bresson, Monkstown
Temple Garner’s SoCoDu brasserie offers brilliant value lunch deals and updates to cherished Gallic classics; @bressonrestaurant
lamaisondublin.com; @lamaisondublin