Bang

What should we know about Bang?

Many of us have been passing these doors for years without the temptation to darken them, as Joe Barrett’s old institution mopped up Merrion Street’s office crowd clientele and corporate lunches, but stayed firmly off the city's hot lists. After bringing the brand back from the (cr)ashes in 2010, he’s made the very good decision to pass the Bang baton onto son Richie and business partner Eric Matthews, who together cooked up quite the storm with Kicky's just over two years ago.

It’s a shrewd move on the part of a place in need of a kicking, this time taking cues from the Iberian peninsula - a more homogenous area than the broad “Mediterranean” brief they brought to George’s Street. Barrett and Matthews have brought in Bang 3.0, a different kind of reinvention - this is less a rethink for tighter times, than a glow-up amidst a glut of increasingly good options.

Where should we sit?

Swapping out cool blues for splashes of red with copper accents, the instantly warmer vibe registers all the more inviting on the kind of miserable mid-winter night it feels like we’re never going to escape. A few steps up from the street, the airy mezzanine has a livelier energy from a restored wall mural and high ceilings, a space to start the night if ever there was one.

Downstairs, dimmer lights and cosier crannies are all about finishing things off – you would need to be prised out of here even before the feasting that follows. Thoughtful acoustics and low lamps ensure that for all their relatively dense population, the two-tops have a set-apart sense. Groups will get the benefit of the two larger wraparound booths, all the better to sink into with each passing plate.

What should we have?

Make right for mussel escabeche (€9.50) to complete the relaxing effect – we practically slid from our seats at first bite. Slathers of stracciatella are pressed with the pickled shellfish, the toast so top-heavy it threatens to topple. There’s no such imbalance in taste, with onion teased to a pre-caramelised point and the herbal hint of fresh fennel tops tempering the tang.

The Portuguese dub their steak sandwiches “prego” for the way garlic is studded into the beaten-thin meat like a nail. Bang's "Prego" (€16) hits it right on the head. Super-soft bread greedily sopped in the rare meat’s juices mingles with the nostril-flaring fire of a house mustard, to big up best-in-the-biz beef in the form of Peter Hannan’s 40-day aged fillet. Leaning hard into quality, Bang’s elevation makes every cent of this premium price tag tasteable.

From one homage to another, in the instantly iconic tortilla tribute to Barcelona’s Cal Pep (€14.50), from whose owner Matthews says he teased the textural secret of glorious gooiness. Good news for Dublin that he did - this is the best take on an omelette española you’re likely to get without a boarding pass in hand. Gubbeen chorizo flies the flag for local produce, studded in small dice among wafer-thin spuds and sticky-sweet caramelised onions. The pungent potency of a house alioli that isn’t playing around is all that kept us collapsing into a coma with each added bite.

It's a choice to have made the fideuà (€14.50), a Valencian pasta paella, sans socarrat – but not, we would argue, the right one. The crunchy crust layer best achieved by a cast iron pan and the confidence not to stir it may have been omitted here to better highlight the perfectly crisp skin of the red mullet perched atop, but in the absence of it the stock-soaked noodles feel a little stodgy. A simple fix in this case is not a quick one.

Mains are more akin to Kicky’s than the rest of the menu, courtesy of the wood-fire grill. The sight of secreto (€29) among the options set our eyes wide – in Spain el gato may be long out of la bolsa on this prize cut of Iberico pork, but its rarity on Irish menus had us huddled in hope. Pairing the nutty sweetness of the acorn-fed pig with the lush, buttery tenderness of marbled fat, the cut comes to life with a suitably simple treatment – seared to a crisp and sprinkled with flaky salt. Only over-iced radicchio losing a little bitter balance held this plate back from perfection.

Monkfish (€32) can’t bring the same nudge-wink novelty, for all the good the grill’s heat gets out of it. The zing of chimichurri lifts the butter-basted medallions still threaded to the bone, smoky charred skin and soft, sweet meat to the fore in every wrestled forkful. With turbot and red mullet also among the bone-in bounties of the sea gracing the grill since opening, seafood lovers will be thrilled.

The battle of Ballymakenny has raged for years as Dublin’s chefs seek to make the best side of these superb spuds, from Coppinger’s hash brown-style chunky cuts, to Hera’s taramasalata-topped crisps. For all its menu largely resists the obvious choices, Bang couldn’t but do bravas (€7) with them. They readily yielded the requisite crisp crags, but the interiors were just a little too firm - a shame as our mains sauces were crying out for some mopping.

Bang will make a popular date spot so assertive desserts matter – all that alioli will take plenty of masking. The one-two punch power of Jamón ibérico fat caramel and a tooth-clogging hazelnut praline rises to the task, a tableside splash of Pedro Ximénez helping to cut through the intensity of 85% chocolate mousse (€12). This is near indecent stuff, dessert that taps deep reserves of gastric pleasure.

Burnt Basque cheesecake (€12) is a dessert so often done a disservice that we’re never inclined to order outside Euskadi for fear of pale and chalky imitations. We rejoiced three years ago to find San Sebastian’s La Vina in the capital by way of Mr Croqueta – Bang's is just as good and better again. Enhanced even more by a baked pear, both cheesecake and fruit are so velvety soft they practically slice themselves at the mere mention of a spoon. The only-in-Ireland creaminess of Ballylisk cheese, and the floral depth of a heather honey sum up the singular appeal of this Hiberno-Iberian hybrid.

What’s good to drink?

Other than an obligatory glass of Pedro Ximénez to wash down that mousse? The family-focused wine list abandons the all-Iberian theme in favour of some French fancy, but there's plenty of fine stuff on there. BTG options are limited with the better stuff to be had for those sharing a bottle, though Juvé & Camps Gran Reserva 2021 cava (€16) is a brut beauty, even at a hefty margin. This seems to be the case everywhere these days, but we did spot some names that (slightly) undercut Bar Pez, so that's something.

House cocktails are on the punchier side at €15 a serve, though there’s enough novelty in the likes of Kerrygold-washed whiskey and onion syrup to turn heads. Happy to see Wicklow’s Móinéir wines in the running we sampled a 'Strawberry Silk Road', and found its Saint Germain pushed things just a little too sweet.

How was the service?

Parachuting the Kicky’s model into the Bang business brings the advantage of two well-oiled machines in perfect harmony – there wasn’t a hiccup here. With the staff keen to know everything is landing right in the first few weeks, we won’t begrudge the immediate check-ins after every (no, really every) first bite. Despite the inevitable public transport hurdles at the first hint of rain holding one of us up well into our reservation time, we’d never have known from our unrushed treatment that time was ticking down to the next booking. In a city where such things happen a lot, a little understanding goes a long way.

What should we budget?

Wining and dining to your heart’s – if not your belt buckle’s – content will see you rack up a €150-€200 bill for a table of two easily, especially with a better bottle. On the dry, you could have a shared main and side, two of the small plates and that all-important escabeche for closer to €40 a head. But life’s too short to be spent staring longingly at the food you didn’t order. Our advice is to round up a gang and get as close to ordering the lot as you can.

What’s the verdict on Bang?

If you're anything like us your meal here will end with a defeated whimper rather than a Bang, as heavy-lidded eyes proven bigger than now bulging bellies look hopefully upon ice cold digestifs planted down before us to soften the bill's blow. In Spain they call the post-prandial lingering over drinks "sobremesa", meaning "over the table", and that's how you're likely to be sprawled after this Spanish feast. This new ode to the flavours and the fulsome hospitality of the Iberian peninsula is totally bang-on.