ALLTA
101 Setanta Place, Dublin 2
The food: Pasta, Small Plates
Niall Davison’s ‘wine bar with handmade food’ was one of the most anticipated openings of 2019, and didn’t disappoint when the doors finally opened. Small plates, pasta and wine are the order of the day, with the crab bigoli, chicken liver scarpinocc and BBQ lamb with seaweed pappardelle reaching cult status within days. Don’t miss the bread and shiitake miso butter either, and the scallops with hazelnuts and gooseberry beurre blanc are likely to be one of the best things you eat this year.
CRITIC REVIEWS
Lucinda O'Sullivan, Sunday Independent
19 Jan 2020
"Two little 'French trimmed' bite-size 'lollipops' of crispy, bone-in skate wing (€8.50) with a seaweed cream were lovely; but the pasta-like slivers of grilled cuttlefish (€15.50) tossed in a gooseberry beurre blanc with hazelnuts had flavours and textures that were truly superb."
Gillian Nelis, Business Post
08 Dec 2019
"Each of these dishes in and of themselves were delicious, featured wonderful Irish ingredients, and were clearly the result of a huge amount of hard work by Davidson and his kitchen team ... but served like this, one after another, they just didn't work - they were far too rich, with the flavour of one competing with the other."
Tom Doorley - Irish Daily Mail
23 Nov 2019
"While I suspect there's much more to come, what's happening at the moment is impressive and needs to be seen in context. What you get are small dishes - even the bigger dishes are on the small side - that deliver explosions of flavour that work exceptionally well with the extensive wine list."