Joining us as an Editor of the Bridgestone Guides is the distinguished writer and blogger Joe McNamee. http://josephdmcnamee.com @jozeemac
Here, Joe looks at a smart piece of restaurant positioning by The Electric, in Cork City.
If The Electric was a car, it would be German: wonderfully engineered, luxurious, but not ostentatious, and with some serious horsepower under the hood. Mind you, with Irish drivers behind the wheel, it will always retain an element of unpredictability. In a good way.
It's a rare restaurant that makes a good fist of appealing successfully to a wide cross-section of the dining public; rarer still are those places that can stretch such appeal beyond the usual appetites of the common or casual grazer. It's a delicate balancing act, and The Electric have embraced it with gusto.
It’s obvious from the clientele, a delightfully mixed assortment. It’s even more obvious in a menu featuring a homemade burger, a pasta dish, fish and chips; all decent takes on old reliables made with quality, locally-sourced ingredients but nonetheless a safety net for the easily-spooked diner. But out on the fringes, chef Kevin O’Regan gets to flex his muscles, show off his chops to the more adventurous, a game dish here, an offal dish there.
For example, fried tripe, chorizo, chickpeas and kale, a perfectly simple/simply perfect take on an old Spanish classic. That traditionally soothing comfort-blanket, tripe, is re-suited in a sprightly crisp batter and taken out on the town by a bolshie spiced chorizo; nutty chickpeas, a spoon of broth and dark-green leaves of baby kale keep the peace, bringing the entire party together in immaculate, toothsome harmony.
In a restored art deco building, the spacious room is a joy. Floor-to-ceiling windows drink in light and air from the bustling city without and a balcony at the back, perched right over the River Lee, is soon to converted into a year-round ‘orangery’ — smokers, it seems, are a dying breed in every sense.
Downstairs in the bar, a pleasant if less remarkable space, they serve up good, wholesome soups and doorstep sandwiches for the lunchtime trade and do a nice line in reasonably-priced tapas throughout the day for imbibers suddenly waylaid by rumbling tums.
Though The Electric have pragmatically, unashamedly sought a niche somewhere between the pizza-pasta-burger posse and the upper end of the market, the excellent, friendly service is top drawer– efficient, informed yet unobtrusive.
The Electric Bar & Restaurant,
41 South Mall, Cork, Ireland
Tel +353 21 4222 990
