Cantina Valentina

What do we need to know about Cantina Valentina?

It's been a long four/five years since The Central Hotel on Exchequer Street closed its doors, and a long three since we found out the international group The Hoxton were taking over, bringing with it all the design-led, lifestyle-focused, ultra-modern touches familiar to anyone who's stayed in any of their boutique hotels before. As well as the resurrection of the famous Library Bar, the thing we were most excited about was that the group's Peruvian restaurant, Cantina Valentina, would be installed on the ground floor. We've been bleating on about Peruvian food being a massive gap in the dining scene here for longer than we can remember, and The Hoxton have a tendency to get things right, so this was a good news day.

Cantina Valentina started out as a concept in The Hoxton's incubator space underneath their Holborn hotel in 2021, devised by the hotel group's food and beverage director Jules Pearson, along with chef Adam Rawson, who's travelled extensively in Peru and worked at London's Pachamama. He wanted to bring a mix of cosmopolitan and historical dishes, from coastal villages to isolated mountain towns, and the restaurant opened proper in Brussels in 2023. Based on its success the group picked Dublin as their second location (London has tonnes of fantastic Peruvian restaurants - lucky them), and it opened officially last week, after a week or so of soft launching with some chosen influencers.

Where should we sit?

The room is in two sections. There's the front room where you walk in featuring the bar, and the back room featuring the raw bar. There's lots of different table configurations and they'd easily sit eight without a problem if you're planning a group night out, even though it's not a huge restaurant. It's all very tactile and comfortable with most tables featuring a banquette, and you'll probably spend as much time as we did taking in the lighting, the cushions, the artwork, the ornamental touches dotted around the place.

For anything up to four people you could sit at the raw bar and see your food being prepared - it's curved so you should still be able to talk to each other - and there's a few nice corners for intimate encounters. The lighting is also low, which some might see as cosy and romantic, while others will bemoan squinting to read their menu.

What's the menu like?

Modern Peruvian by way of London. For the most part this is less what the grannies are eating in Cusco, and more what the gastro tourists are eating in Lima. There's plenty drawn from the country's most famous dishes and ways of eating - ceviche being number one. There are six different types (including a veggie option), and it should be a large focus of your meal here.

Other typical Peruvian dishes include grilled skewers, pollo a la brasa, quinoa-based salads, and carapulcra - a rich stew made from dried Andean potatoes. To potentially save you a Google, 'Aji' and 'Rocoto' are types of chillies. Ají Amarillo is sweeter, Ají Panca is smokier, and Rocoto is very spicy. Cancha, is toasted Andean corn.

A bite while you wait? We wanted all four but with some measure of restraint we stuck to the chicharrones with aji lime salt (€9), and holy hell these are now the ones to beat citywide. Rendered and crisped to such perfection you may think you're hallucinating, these will wipe all memories of flabby, fatty pork belly from your mind, along with tooth-breaking cracking. The sweet amarillo mayo on the side is just added lux.

After that you'll need some ceviche - the culinary equivalent of a lightning strike to the mouth. Scallop ceviche (€18) comes with jalapeño tiger's milk, green apple and cancha (toasted corn), with two corn tortillas to scoop it up onto, and it's been so long since we had ceviche this precisely perfect that it was almost an 'I've just got something in my eye' moment. There's seabream and tuna versions too, and we're going back for all of them.

We ordered the 'fried calamari ceviche' (€17) ready to tear it apart - how can anything fried be ceviche! Well if this is wrong, we don't want to be right. A mound of lightly-spiced, barely breaded, tender as a baby's cheek calamari rings come with a bowl of 'Tiger's milk a la chalaca' - a milky-looking ceviche marinade with lime juice, coriander, possibly some fish stock and kernels of crunchy corn. Throw a ring in the bowl, scoop it out with a spoon and throw your head back in glee as a new core food memory is created. Absolutely no notes, now or ever.

From the 'Anticucho' (skewers) section, the lomo saltado (typical Peruvian, super savoury, stir-fried beef) comes with Hereford beef, shoestring fries and a piquillo pepper sauce. It's already in chunks so easily shareable, and the flavour from marinading, grilling and painting it with that sauce runs so deep, the fries adding a tiny bit of extra texture to the silky meat.

From the bigger plates, we were floored by some of the pre-opening menu prices, with a duck and rice dish priced at €52, a Herford dry-aged rib-eye for €54 (no sides), and a whole Peruvian (presumably farmed) sea bream to share at €72. Who would ever pay this we thought! And they obviously thought twice, because when we got there the duck dish had been reduced to just the leg for €32, and a new 'pollo a la brasa' had been added, also for €32. However, there's been an insane decision to raise the price of the 450g rib-eye to €90!? Again, we wonder, typo? The same size rib-eye in Hawksmoor is €58 (no fries for that but still). In FX Buckley it's €69 with a side and sauce. If you pay €90 for a steak here you have more money than sense.

We have more sense than money, so it was the 'signature' free-range pollo a la brasa, with lamb's lettuce and aji amarillo mayo (€32). Most people will want to add fries (€6), so this is not a cheap version of chicken and chips by any stretch, but it's a very good one. We rarely order chicken for obvious reasons, but we would if more tasted as juicy and smokily skinned as this one, that amarillo mayo and just dressed lamb's lettuce a double chef's kiss.

Fries were excellent too - hot, crisp and perfectly salted.

We were interested to try their version of carapulcra, a rich, dried Andean potato stew that usually comes with pork or beef (or llama), but is one of the vegetarian options here, with mushrooms and fresh truffle (the part that presumably justifies the €32 price point). In Peru potatoes are often sun or freeze-dried to make them last longer, rehydrating them when needed. This might not win 'most attractive dish of the night', but it's at the top of the table for flavour, those potatoes almost concentrated, the mushrooms bringing deep umami in every bite, and the (scant) truffle adding additional luxury. It's one of those dishes where you think a couple of forkfuls will be enough, but you can't stop going back for more.

Their 'Peruvian-braised lamb' (€38, Slane Valley's best slow-cooked) gets the South American treatment with coriander sauce (barely discernable), black kale and frijoles. Lamb feels as much of a high end ingredient as truffle these days, and this one was so well cooked it was practically spoonable, but we found the flavours extremely rich and salty. A whole plate for one would have tipped us over the edge, but you probably know someone whose street it would be right up.

A side of grilled broccoli and peanuts (there was chilli too) had one of the best treatments of a cruciferous veg we've had in a while, but the broccoli itself was overcooked and soggy. Hopefully a one time misdemeanour.

There are four desserts, and they felt to us like more of an add on than a main event. We're regretting now not ordering Peru's famous 'suspiro de limena' with custard, meringue and passion fruit, thinking it might be bland and/or plain. Instead we went for the tres leches (€12, more Latin American than strictly Peru), named for the evaporated milk, condensed milk and whole milk in the mix. It's soft, sweet and mild, with the coconut on top and berries at the side adding texture and tartness. Pleasant? Yes. A must order? No.

What's a dessert menu without a chocolate tart, and Cantina Valentina's (€12) come with cacao, toasted quinoa ice-cream and dulce le leche. They recommend cracking the wafer and mixing it all in, and we couldn't really ascertain where the tart was. It felt more like a splodge of chocolate, a splodge of dulce de lecha, and some toasty ice-cream with a slightly grainy texture. There was nothing not to like here, but equally we don't think it's an essential ending. The yuzu sorbet Pisco Colonel (€11) would be a lighter, boozier end to dinner.

What should we drink?

There are three signature drinks on the food menu - a classic Pisco Sour, a Spicy Margarita and an N/A Chicha Morada. The Pisco Sour is as good as in our rose-tinted memories of Peru, and the Chicha is a really refreshing alcohol-free choice, with purple corn steeped in fresh pineapple, apple, cloves and cinnamon, topped up with fresh lime juice and soda. There's a larger cocktail menu too with eight 'house' options, featuring more Pisco, Tequila, Gin and more.

As with any hotel wine list, it's never going to light us on fire with excitement, and prices are very high. There's only three bottles on the whole list under €50, with most in the region of €50-€60.

The most interesting thing here is that they've managed to source Peruvian wine, both a Chardonnay and a Syrah (€11.50 a glass or €55 a bottle). We tried a glass of the Chardonnay, and while it was crisp, clean and refreshing while chilled, as it warmed up it became clear what a simple wine it is. Good for a try, but we wouldn't go back for a bottle.

How was the service?

Very pleasant but more training is needed. We had to ask for water every time, the empty carafe pushed to the front of the table not enough to nudge the standstill staff into action. We had to request a glass of wine twice before it was delivered, and we were one of only a few tables there, so we hope they can tighten things up before they get busier. Staff were very friendly and asked us lots of times how our food and drinks were, but they need to do better at anticipating diners' needs before they have to raise a hand.

What was the damage?

We paid around €80 a head for a generous amount of food for three and one drink each. You could definitely order less than we did (we overdid it) but a few more cocktails and wine and your bill will be in the big leagues. This is definitely in the "pricier restaurants" category. If you're on a budget, go for a Pisco sour, some chicharrónes and a bowl of ceviche and you'll be out for under €40 before tip. Otherwise go large.

What's the verdict on Cantina Valentina?

After an all time wait, Dublin finally has Peruvian food of a standard we've only seen in London and Peru - we think that's worth getting excited about. Yes it's expensive, and sometimes it feels like we're living in an alternate universe, getting more and more detached about the prices of food and eating out. It's becoming harder and harder to discern what's good value, what's too much, what's worth spending the big bucks on, and there's so much noise, opinions and crying out from every side on what's fair and right (both diners and restaurants). In the end all we can judge on is whether or not we think the food, drinks and experience are worth your time and money. In Cantina Valentina, we've found dishes we've been attempting to manifest here for at least 10 years, so (budget allowing) our answer is a big fat yes.