The Lobster Pot
9 Ballsbridge Terrace, Dublin 4
The world is too much with us right now it seems. There’s nothing but the blues on the news. The centre is not holding. Read all about it. But what if there was a way to escape the dread for a spell? What if there existed a place insulated from the ills of our age, a place that operated as if “Labubu” and “Ozempic” were gibberish terms made up by the internet? I was searching for just such a subject for my first Sunday Times column when I was inadvertently reminded of the Lobster Pot in leafy Ballsbridge. I suppose I’ve been aware of it for ever, but barely. I had never eaten there, yet had filed away the receipts of other people’s recollections. “Old-school French”, “timeless” and “flambéed” appeared to be the key words. Housed in a couple of rooms on Ballsbridge Terrace, it has been family-owned and run since 1980. I began to anticipate the charms of dining in a restaurant suspended in an aspic of its own making. An image of Terry Keane floats into my mind — wreathed in a fug of B&H smoke, sluicing back montrachet. There’s maybe a table of middle-ranking functionaries from the US embassy getting loose because it’s Friday. I’m looking forward to this. The sensation of time travel begins with the phone call you need to make to reserve a table. They even list the international prefix on their website for American bookings. Take a hike, OpenTable.
The restaurant has been family-owned and run since 1980
WILL MORGAN
“French food” becomes cyclically cool in the dining capitals. I’m not talking about the toujours en verdure brasseries or the rarefied air of the multiple-starred joints, but places like Bouchon Racine in London and Le Chêne in the West Village. These are kitchens that practise classicism as subversion, their menus watermarked with associations of louche sophistication and social savoir-faire. The Lobster Pot is not one such place. The menu is a litany of things that were probably old hat in 1980; some predate the liberation of France from the Nazis. This sort of anthropology is very appealing to me. That said — I had to look up Lambs (sic) Kidneys Turbigo, and who wants to begin dinner with Grilled Spiced Grapefruit drizzled with Irish Mist? Irish Mist! Nevertheless, in an age of compulsory tasting menus there’s something unquestionably luxurious about being given the option to have your Dover sole prepared in one of three ways. Or so you would think. One of those ways is bananas — Dover Sole Caprice is a bizarre preparation that involves rolling the fillets with lengths of banana, deep-frying and serving with (but of course) a mango chutney. The last (and only) place that I saw this on a menu was the seafood restaurant that used to occupy the third floor of the Lord Edward pub. It succumbed to age-related natural causes a decade ago. Lamentation was muted.
On a recent Thursday night we ascend the stairs to the dining room to be met with, well, nothing and nobody. After some performative coughing (from me) a man in a waistcoat saunters around the corner and gestures wanly at a table. We look after our own coats and that sinking feeling begins. The room is very much as one would expect — beige, ruched and pelmetted. Maritime scenes hang on the walls. It bears the patina of many services and has seen better evenings. I had begun to entertain the notion that the ladies’ menus might come without prices as was the custom in days of yore when men were more chivalrous and openly condescending. They do have prices but not a lot of structural integrity; mine is held together with bits of yellowing tape. With the trundling arrival of the “fish trolley” our night takes the first of many tilts into the surreal.
The “fish trolley”
WILL MORGAN
Displaying raw fish for patrons’ inspection is not unheard of, but the manner of the presentation here is the stuff of comedy sketch shows. A man with the mien of a hostage works his way down the extremely unimpressive selection, listlessly poking each example with a dinner fork as he names them. In an attempt to cheer him up I inquire about provenance and he begins to intone the word “farmed” over and over. He seems to be losing the will to live, live. The final item on the trolley is a banana, skin-on, belted around its middle with a band of raw breaded fish. It represents the aforementioned Dover Sole Caprice and resembles something that a captive bonobo might be gifted on his or her birthday. I begin to feel the onset of mild hysteria.
I hadn’t asked for my Fresh Prawn Bisque to be finished tableside with a shot of cognac but neither did I want to startle the man hoving towards me wielding a flaming ladle of liquor. It confers some kind of eldritch property, becoming hotter as I stir it. I begin to wonder if smoke rather than steam is rising from it. The infernal heat masks the absence of any flavour and it’s difficult to believe that any prawns were harmed in its making. Goujons of Sole are similarly tasteless and mealy. Fresh Dublin Bay Prawn Cocktail in a marie rose sauce presents as a rubble of dry, woolly prawns with some salad leaves and a splot of mayonnaise on the side. Tournedos Rossini is a typically involved dish from the classical French canon, an exercise in extravagance that is variously attributed to the likes of Antonin Carême or Auguste Escoffier. A slice of fried filet mignon is placed on a circular crouton and topped with a lobe of seared foie gras; both are then lavished with petals of black truffle before the dish is finished with a rich madeira-based sauce. The last time I ate this it was prepared by Vish Sumputh (now of Etto) when he cooked at Luna in its first (glorious) iteration. That was 2018 and I think of it still. The version here might also linger in my memory, though not for the same reason. This is a steak sitting on a piece of bread that has been thinly spread with pâté. The sauce probably came in a pouch. The show of “silver service” continues with portions of poorly cooked “veg” being grimly doled on to white kidney dishes, nursing home style.
Dover Sole Bonne Femme is a further travesty, and a shambolic attempt at tableside Crêpes Suzette by a trainee waiter results in plates of inedible slop. No one is running the room, nobody queries the amount of food on the plates as they are cleared. The bill is not insubstantial. I had hoped that this place might serve as a respite from the times we live in, rather than a sad parody of a bygone age. The Lobster Pot is not an escape, it’s a trap. C’est dommage.
thelobsterpot.ie
Dining and Cooking