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GASTRO Raise the Bar Bar Italia Ristorante In cas
e you hadn’t noticed the name and general preoccupation of this publication I should start by clarifying that this piece is not about London’s Bar Italia. That venerable Frith Street café opened its doors in 1946 and has since been variously credited with introducing the English to espresso, wild gesticulation and the other two sexual positions. I’m sure I was familiar with a couple of those things as a young buck spending a mid-nineties Summer in the city but I do vividly recollect once having Special K there at about half three on a Sunday morning. Really sets one up for the day. Dublin’s Bar Italia (Ristorante) can’t quite compete in terms of antiquity but the place has been slinging spaghetti by the river for almost 25 years now and that’s a lifetime in restaurant years. The place opened in 1999 on Ormond Quay as part of a notional Northside ‘Italian Quarter’ dreamt up by an eccentric but kindly property developer whose name escapes me. I’m not quite sure how ‘Italian’ the quarter has remained but perhaps the name always suggested that 75% of the other tenants would be from anywhere but there. The whole brand thing can be tricky. I suppose I patronised the place semi-regularly in the early 2000’s but I really don’t recall the food ever being special in any way, K or otherwise. It was, perfectly fine but nothing to write (home) about. This is certainly no longer the case. 36