Gloria Osteria
Address: 41 Westmoreland St, Dublin, D02 VY45
Telephone: N/A
Cuisine: Italian
Website: https://gloria-osteria.com/gloria-osteria-dublinOpens in new window
Cost: €€€
When I think of Italian restaurants, vivid scarlet pots with scented jasmine and deer-printed lounge chairs are not what come to mind, nor do they suggest a trip to 1970s Milan. Not that I was there then. I first landed in Italy in the 1980s, when restaurants fell into two camps: rickety little places with short menus, and serious dining rooms where crisp white linen matched the pared-back aesthetic of classical, sequential courses of seafood, pasta, fish or meat, guided by a waiter and a wine list with real heft. You still find them.
And yet there is a newer style of restaurant I have surprised myself by enjoying, maximalist and glamorous, the sort of place where the room makes an entrance before you do. Locale Firenze in Florence is one such example, its cocktail bar on the World’s 50 Best list, its cooking playful and precise.
This is what I walk into at Gloria Osteria. A diningroom so richly dressed it feels as though every surface has been given a role. Jacopo Foggini chandeliers glow the colour of Campari negronis. Light ricochets off mirrors and polished wood, while the walls crowd together framed art and silk scarves featuring leopards that feel more Versace than Ferragamo. The carpet keeps things mercifully hushed, because visually the room is already doing enough.
It is a dramatic reworking of the former 19th-century AIB bank on Westmoreland Street. The last time this stretch flirted with glamour was in the 1980s, when Reuters was booming and a yellow Lotus Esprit might have been parked outside.
Everything feels as though it arrived fully formed in a single, gleaming capsule, staffed by 70 immaculately groomed Italian superheroes, all smiles and delight. Seen in its full Austin Powers splendour, the only response is a quiet, “yeah, baby”.
Somehow, Gloria already feels embedded in Dublin. The only real hint that it belongs to the French-owned Big Mamma empire of 30 trattorias is the discreet headset worn by a few waiters, something I usually loathe, but barely register here.
The menu is a fairly standard Italian line-up with a few Big Mamma twists. Antipasti mix classics with crowd-pleasers; primi focus on fresh pasta, from sideways lasagna to the more spendy lobster with caviar, and secondi stick to familiar territory: veal, beef and steak with a little fish – solid, traditional, and priced accordingly. There are plenty of opportunities to add black truffle for €5, which is Italian, rather than the far pricier Périgord truffle currently in season.
Gloria Osteria on Westmoreland Street, Dublin.
Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill 
Gloria Osteria’s rich and opulent interiors are there to be enjoyed. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill 
Gloria Osteria is a dramatic reworking of the former 19th-century AIB bank on Westmoreland Street. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
The wine list offers the Italian heavy hitters you’d expect, but keeping things restrained, I opt for a Corte Camari Grillo (€42), a crisp white poured into crystal glasses with stems slender enough to rival Zalto.
A sense of summer runs through the tomato tatin (€16). Deeply roasted Datterini sit on thin, well-baked pastry, lifted by a cool quenelle of pecorino cream that feels genuinely inspired. The beef carpaccio (€26) is clearly for sharing, dressed with rocket, balsamic and Parmigiano. It’s neatly done, if far from the Milanese ideal of paper-thin beef with oil and lemon. The sweetness of the balsamic and the rocket’s missing bite become evident once the tableside flourish fades. Better is the maltagliati with pesto (€20): loose, wide ribbons, green and glossy, with real bite and a pesto that tastes freshly made.
With the turbot off and the salmon Wellington failing to tempt, we land on the veal escalope (€36), which is partly hidden beneath radicchio and carrot ribbons that read as colour first, purpose second. Shared, it reveals an imbalance: one end evenly crumbed, pale and tender, the other thick with crumbs, the veal stretched thin and a little dispirited. The sides of crispy potatoes (€6.50) and garlicky spinach (€7) work nicely.
Tomato tatin at Gloria Osteria. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill 
The menu is a fairly standard Italian line-up with a few Big Mamma twists. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill 
Veal ossobuco in Guinness. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill 
Tangy lemon pie at Gloria Osteria.
Dessert is a highlight. Go straight for the chocolate soufflé (€16), which is really a fondant in soufflé clothing: dense Valrhona chocolate rather than cocoa-led airiness. There’s molten chocolate at the centre and a cool quenelle of pistachio ice cream perched on top, which tempers the richness. Unless you have shown restraint earlier, it is best shared.
Service is extraordinarily good, warm and polished, without feeling choreographed, and the room is so gloriously over the top, it wins you over immediately. It’s Milan through a disco lens: bigger hair, brighter lights, a touch of shag-pile bravado. There’s something genuinely cheering about a room that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a very good time, dressed for a long night out.
Dinner for two with a bottle of wine was €169.50.
The verdict: Groovy, confident and dressed for a big night out.
Food provenance: La Rousse, Glenmar, FX Buckley, All’Ortolano, Italy.
Vegetarian options: Tomato tatin, truffle toast, Caesar salad, maltagliati with pesto, cacio e pepe and fazzoletti ai tre formaggi.
Wheelchair access: Fully accessible with an accessible toilet.
Music: 1970s-1980s Italo-disco and pop remixes.
Dining and Cooking