The Bar + Grill @ James Street South
It would have been the perfect girly Friday lunch, if only John McKenna had been born a girl. He did confide to his sisters – Jakki and Belinda – that he had read Caitlin Moran's brilliant “How to Be a Woman”, but they explained politely that this didn't actually count. Two girls and a guy, then, and if it wasn't to be the perfect girly Friday lunch in Belfast's Bar + Grill, it had to be content with being the perfect lunch.
Perfect doesn't happen too often in the restaurant world, yet when it does happen, it seems to happen in Northern Ireland. We have enjoyed perfect meals cooked by Michael Deane, Paul Rankin, Nick Price, the late Robbie Millar, Ian Orr and, now, Niall McKenna.
But it's not just the food that Mr McKenna has gotten right. Bar + Grill is one of the best dining rooms in the country, stripped back to red brick, bright with natural light, with a bar that makes you want to pull up a stool and order a whiskey sour. The staff wear jackets and jeans and are politeness itself. Everything gleams. It is one of the great restaurant rooms, pulsing with the restaurantness of a restaurant. Even the menu is a masterpiece of graphic design.
We chose crab on toast; goat cheese and duck salad with honey mustard dressing; and prawn cocktail to start. The cocktail was in a happy big cocktail glass and was beautifully delivered – fresh prawns, crisp leaves, a light dressing, with thin pieces of toasted bread. Whilst it didn't offer the contrast of flavours that makes Martin Shanahan's Fishy Fishy prawn cocktail such a contemporary classic, this was nevertheless faultless. The crab on toast was equally perfect, and won an extra prize for featuring a piece of proper shell to demonstrate its authenticity. The duck salad offered two quenelles of pulled duck beside a beautifully firm and savoury piece of cheese, and the sweet dressing was just right.
Main courses were fish pie, with a side of green beans; oxtail and cauliflower, with a lettuce and herb salad; and Parmesan and chive risotto. Picture-postcard pretty, all three offered a lesson in both taste and texture: the mash on the pie was as light as a wish; the toothsome cauliflower contrasted with the melting texture of the oxtail, whilst the risotto was a textbook example of al dente perfection. Each dish was perfect, and not just technically perfect, but happy perfect, satisfying perfect, delicious perfect, moreish perfect. To get food of such merit in a restaurant that has only been open 2 months is an extraordinary achievement, and whilst Niall McKenna has a great deal of experience as both chef and restaurateur, it is still a mighty feat to get every detail of each dish so correct.
We shared a dessert of rice pudding with a little raspberry coulis, and it simply offered more perfection. Of course, they could have got the drinks wrong, but the Domaine Bellevue from the Loire Valley was the perfect lunchtime bottle, and the espresso and cappuchino and Earl Grey tea were... that's right, perfect. Niall McKenna has fashioned a classic restaurant with classic food, and we didn't even try the speciality grill dishes which use his Josper grill. That will be for the next time, and the next time will be as soon as we can get back to James Street South. Niall McKenna is one of the modern masters.
The Bar + Grill at James Street South
21 James Street South, Belfast
www.belfastbargrill.co.uk
Tl: 028 9560 0700
