It’s a little hard to spot Venu Brasserie- it lives in a side street opposite the long established Chilli Club off South Anne Street, in the basement of what looks like a white marble office block.
But when you descend the stairs, you’re greeted by alarmingly good-looking Amazons who take your coat and whisk you into the dining area.
There’s a pretty dramatic cocktail bar facing you when you enter with a tall tome of a cocktail menu. But I went straight past the idlers at the bar and sat in one of the booths in the centre of the large, high vaulted ceilinged room.
Its early days yet, so I’m sure they’ll work on the atmosphere, but when we arrived the effect of the blue lighting on white walls shaded past cool and into cold. The ceiling height and open seating area means that you have an unparalleled view of the sights, and sounds of a self-confident, young clientele. Though from what I saw, the Tiger cubs are missing something in the table manners training they receive.
The menu is a collection of old favourites- steak and chips, pasta dishes, blue cheese and bacon salad- and a few luxury touches such as oysters, lobster or foie gras. With a collection of standards like this, it is all about the quality of the kitchen.
And, happily, that quality is very, very good. Fish is cooked to melting perfection. Steaks arrive cooked as ordered. Foie gras with brioche this good will be a show stopper every time, even if arriving as a starter means it stops the show almost before it gets started.
A generic side dish of ‘vegetables’, looking like they’d arrived from another, soggier, planet was the only off note in a symphony of quality cooking.
Desserts are similarly good. I had the traditional apple crumble, which arrived with untraditional toasted whole hazelnuts and a suitably restrained scoop of light vanilla ice cream. My companions had chocolate biscuit cake (really a high class brownie) and a bread and butter pudding which disappointed only in comparison to the alternatives.
A request for a Calypso coffee was met with blank rejection by the French staff. Otherwise, they were numerous, attentive and friendly.
The bill came to about €35 each. There might be a few teething problems, but once people can find it, I’d say Venu Brasserie will be a place you’ll have to book.
4 Comments
venu don’t take bookings for parties of 5 or less
was there about a week ago, really enjoyed it, great food, great drinks, at reasonable prices, a bit noisy though.
Was there on Saturday in a party of four. Excellent food at a very reasonable price. Just wanted to note that they are taking bookings for groups of four now, although we did have to be seated at 7 and gone by 9.15; I think this was only because we placed the booking on Wednesday.
Was there for a Christmas party. Starter of pumpkin soup was excellent, as was steak main course. Christmas pudding dessert was disappointing – stodgy and tasteless. Maybe I’m spoilt by my wife’s superb Christmas pud! Service left something to be desired – waited 1 hour for order to be taken, still waiting for coffee….