The Libertine

What’s the story with The Libertine?

Maybe it’s passing the plaque that marks the (fictional) birthplace of Leopold Bloom that has us arrive to The Libertine thinking of Ulysses. In its Circe episode, Joyce’s hero is decried: “the man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years”. Is this new gastropub on the corner of Clanbrassil Street and South Circular Road looking to court those "living for physical and sensual pleasure without a sense of responsibility"? They sound like they'd run up quite a bill.

We often wonder who bars are for. We didn’t need to with craft beer and pub grub hub 57 The Headline, the predecessor that stood here for a decade until 2023, when its landlord assessed the building as easier sold empty than occupied. Nor would anyone have had to think twice about its own forebear Kehoe’s, the sort of local where heads wordlessly turned to anyone who darkened the door, and which dated itself back to Bloom’s time and beyond.

There’s not much trace of libertinism as we enter the latest iteration, near-three years in the making after the Kinsella family snapped the site up to launch a “lounge and lodgings”. Beside us a greying couple’s commitment to the Friday night dinner-and-drinks bit is an effort to ease the terse silence they keep slipping into. The struggling new father beside them comes closer to the mark, as his energetic armful shows “precocious signs of infantile debauchery” and almost escapes into their laps.

Then the glad-ragged gaggle that saunter through the scene, surely the first and steadiest saunter of many they’ll make tonight, past our two-topped row and the snug inside the door, the horseshoe bar at the centre of things, and the ledge perched beside it, into the crimson-curtained bowels at the back. These here, we all agree, must be our libertines.

What’s on the menu?

The autumn edition that just dropped promises “loads of new plates”, but we could count only three swapped in since summer – shame, with all the good stuff on the go. A half-shell scallop (€9) is one, ringing in the shellfish’s new season with a sriracha butter bath and chorizo crumb. The flame-grilled meat’s tender sweetness should stand up well to the spice layers, but there was barely a trace. Sitting in a pretty puddle, neither had much bite.

Look to mustard for that. Served splodged with a sausage (€5.50) whose grease-slicked presentation might have given Leopold himself relish, its bold yellow tones echo the bold brickwork outside – the taste is just as loud. A pretty plate it ain’t - a well-executed classic it is.

The pendulum swings dizzyingly back more gastro than pub with a firm, fresh bluefin tuna tartare (€12), whose side of crisps we clarify after some confusion are made in-house (our bemused waitress briefly thinks we’re asking for Tayto). But a bag of salt and vinegar mightn’t be a bad idea given the limited kick we get from the advertised “togaroisi” [sic]. Spicing here reliably lands less libertine than limp.

It's especially odd with so much of the menu scattered in spice. Three each of the four snacks and small plates claim chilli. Imagine - all the heat-averse punters put off by the menu needn’t have worried. It’s absent again in the beer fried chicken (€15), a slight sweetness all we can glean from the glaze. Ditto the sauce we need to refer back to the menu to realise is burnt leek aioli, without a whiff of char. Under it all, crisp coating encased a juicy gift of Rings free-range thighs, just crying out for seasoned slicks to be dipped into.

Mains fare better. Sauce vierge floods flashes of flavour over flaky fillets of seabass (€24), with crisper skin all we’d want to kick the dish into higher gear.

A cider-glazed Keenan and Kennedy pork chop (€24) cheerleads the grill as well as anything we eat all night, served alongside the bone it’s been sliced from for all your gnawing needs. Fennel’s fresh zing brings the blackened apple sauce back from the brink – a shade more sage than burst forest floor might have kept the fruit fresher.

Broccoli (€7) needs to buck up. The gastropub side du jour has best-in-class exemplars from Borgo’s goat’s bechamel to Hera’s garlic emulsion, Buckley’s miso mayo to Caribou’s romesco. These sad Caesar dribbles without a whiff of anchovy aren’t going to see The Libertine listed alongside them.

Just two desserts tell us it isn’t a real focus and we almost pass until we hear passionfruit tart. But the brûlée (€9) that eventually arrives is not that. Nor is it, in fairness, anything short of perfectly pleasant, though we’re bemused by the blackened bulbs that reveal the raspberries were planted pre-torching. Already a little thin, the caramelised crescent’s crack-to-custard ratio is way off.

How are the drinks?

More libertinistic, at least. A glass of Lacuesta Reserva (€8) is a fitting finale on its own, an oak-aged vermouth all-too-rarely reaching our shores. The wider wine list hits solid mid-market value with a strong span of bottles edging out most other gastropub lists around. Cocktails are just as expansive, with six-deep “Libertini” and dessert sections rounding out fifteen main serves.

From the former, peaches and cream (€16) loses a little flavour in the (appropriately) icy serving but we’d happily work our way through more martinis. The Spark 2.0 (€14) is a signature slant on a spicy marg – if a safe hand with the spice echoes the food, it’s at least a little more bang for your buck.

How was the service?

Breezily pleasant, even if escalating Friday night crowds made catching an eye gradually harder. For a shrewdly-zoned space, more dedicated presence ought to be a given. Things come quick when they are finally asked for, and kitchen and bar both keep up with sudden shifts in pace perfectly.

Does the bill land with a shock?

Not really, if you keep your wits about you. Nothing here’s untowardly priced – not any more so than the rest of this city, that is – and a two-course dinner with sides is just about doable for €40 per person. Snacks are smartly priced so a peckish pint would only see you spend €20, though you’d be eyeing up others’ orders before long.

What’s the verdict on The Libertine?

A pre-dinner pint in Leonard’s Corner across the road brought the battle of the bars to the fore, but there’s no avoiding it – walking into either, you can’t but eye up the signs opposite and wonder which of these recently relaunched spaces is doing it better. In the other corner, a no-notions pub hides a surprisingly great restaurant. Over here, this glowed-up gastropub has a belter of a bar, but plates need more focus to avoid coming second place.