A new trend is starting to emerge in Dublin in the way restaurants are serving their diners. It used to be you had to go for tapas or a Japanese restaurant to get small plates of food delivered to the table as they are ready and in no particular order. Now this style has started to find its way in to popular Irish restaurants - most notably with Oliver Dunne's trendy hotspot Cleaver East and more recently with Brioche in Ranelagh. The idea is that you order several small dishes and they are shared among all at the table as they arrive from the kitchen.

A similar approach has been done before in other cities and with great success. The brilliantly talented Jason Atherton employed it in Maze in London where he used to describe it as 'grazing'. This meant that a diner would order 6 or 7 (or more if hungry) small dishes from a selection of around 30.  It may be the success of Maze, which earned and still holds a Michelin star, that has prompted other Chefs, like Dunne to follow suit. Interestingly, Cleaver East  ambitiously describes itself as "a combination of Irish and International influences, innovatively presented in smaller dishes offering a unique tasting experience", whereas Maze is described on it's website as "A fusion of taste and style, the combination of French and Asian influences offers a unique tasting experience".

Being able to pick as many tasting plates as you wish can be great for a diner, giving the chance to, in essence construct a custom tasting menu and sample many dishes in one sitting. But there are pitfalls for a restaurant in choosing to use this sharing-plate style.

Bringing dishes out to the table as they are ready, sometimes many at a time and in no order, can be irritating for the diner. It can happen, on a table of two for example, that one diner can be served two or even three dishes before the other diner gets one. Now the idea is that you share, but not all dishes will be to every ones taste and what if one of the diners is a vegetarian on a table full of meat dishes? Do you wait until the other dishes arrive or start eating and leave your dining companion to go hungry? If diners are forced to share then dishes need to be designed for sharing. For example, a poached duck egg, like on the Cleaver East menu, is not easily shared. 

We were in Copenhagen recently in a restaurant called Oliver & The Black Circus which had this 'grazing' approach, but they served the dishes in a conventional, logical order and one dish to a guest at a time. So it was really a way for the diner to construct a tasting menu. For us, this is a much better way of doing it.

Since there can be many dishes on the table at the same time, they can be left to go a bit cold while you eat others, or in the case of a scotch egg, the yolk inside can lose its 'runniness' - making it disappointing when you get around to it.

A gripe we have with this is that having many plates on the table at one time, which often happens as they come out when they are ready (not when the diner is ready), can be annoying as there is not always the table space. Three large plates, a bottle of wine, wine glasses, water glasses, cutlery do not always fit comfortably and a game of porcelain tetris is usually needed to get everything to arrange the table. 

We think it would be a good idea for restaurants such as Cleaver East and Brioche to offer a set orthodox tasting menu along with the selection of tasting plates. So, if diners don't want dishes served 'tapas style' they can have them served more conventionally.  Brioche advertise tasting menus on their website, but, to our disappointment, this is actually only offered to group bookings. 

But this 'tapas style' approach is becoming popular, with many diners enjoying it, and so we may see more restaurants adopting it. Especially since it means that, because many dishes can be served simultaneously, restaurants can turn tables quicker.

If we had to chose between Brioche or Cleaver East to return to, it would certainly be Brioche.  We visited Cleaver East twice in 2013. The first time was after it was only open a few days, so it wouldn't be fair to to make a judgement as the restaurant was finding it's feet. But we did see, despite a few annoyances with the "sharing--plate" serving,  plenty of potential. But when we returned near the end of the year, this potential was not realised and the meal disappointing.

We visited Brioche a few weeks ago and, in general, enjoyed a very nice meal. The dining room and food is based on a French bistro style. The dishes are a modern interpretation of classic French dishes and many of them are done successfully. The worst dish was the foie gras, which was barely identifiable as foie gras. It lacked any depth of flavour and was lost with the pickle and extremely good duck fat brioche. The pan-roasted cod fillet was a pretty forgettable dish too. It was severed with almonds that overpowered the delicate cod.

There were a number of very good dishes though. The best dish was the chicken & black pudding boudin. Sometimes chefs label something as a boudin if it is just moulded into a sausage shape, but this boudin had a proper sausage texture. It was flavoursome, but still subtle, and very moreish. The smoked duck dish was also excellent, with the duck being perfectly cooked and well balanced with a chestnut purée. The special on the night of pigs head croquette showed skill and was seasoned perfectly.

The dessert of chocolate pave and salted caramel ice cream was delicious - the combination chocolate and salted caramel usually is. However, the ratio of ingredients on the plate were a bit wrong. The chocolate pave was very small and served with two excellent chocolate macaroons. But we would have preferred a larger pave and only one macaroon, so the pave was prominent. 

The menus in both Brioche and Cleaver East are excellent value with dishes on both restaurants averaging around €10 and both restaurants have a reasonably priced wine menu. The service in Cleaver East is slightly better as it was a bit haphazard in Brioche. But we would like to return to Brioche and won't be rushing back to Cleaver East, which we think is slightly style over substance.

Restaurants need critics. They need praise and encouragement, but even more so they need constructive criticism. Like any professional they need to know where they are going wrong and what needs to be addressed. It is vital to the progression of any restaurant and for the progression of the food industry in a country. The alternative is a restaurant plodding along in blissful ignorance thinking the food and service is flawless. Good reviews may be better for business, but criticism helps a restaurant improve. But how is a restaurant supposed to know which critics to listen to? This must be difficult when there are several professional critics, along with a whole plethora of bloggers (like us), giving feedback. 

Food critics are in an infallible position. If a chef or restaurant is to criticise a critic or publicly disagree with a bad review, they will appear like they cannot take criticism - a charge Oliver Dunne heard a lot last year after his infamous publicity stunt.  I believe Dunne actually invites diners to critique his food when he changes his menu each season in Bon Appetit, so accusing him of not taking criticism may be unfair.

So a restaurant must decide which critics to take notice of and which to ignore. In other words, they must decide which critics know their stuff.

Some of the components that make a good food critic are obvious. Of course, knowledge and a love of food is imperative - being a keen cook must surely help this. A critic needs to be able to identify cooking errors and pick up on the different techniques in a dish. Judging the balance of flavours and textures of a dish is essential. Knowing what ingredients are in season is obligatory. Appreciating good presentation, but not being blinded by it is also key. Seeing clarity in a dish is vital - knowing when there are too many ingredients and techniques on the plate. Spotting poor service is also important - as service has such a big impact on the diners' experience. Despite these requirements being obvious, they seem, to us amateur critics at least, to be lacking in some professional critics.

Ok, so if you are have read our previous post you may have figured that we are not fans of some critics - especially in Ireland. But there are many good reasons for this and it is not just the number of reviews we have read that we do not agree with it.  Nor is it just the huge number of good reviews they seem to dole out.

The most important attribute of a critic is having very high standards. Every positive review of a restaurant must be made with the confidence that anyone visiting the restaurant as a consequence will experience the same excellence. Flaws and imperfections should not be ignored or forgiven and the critic has an obligation to report them. Michelin comes in for a lot of criticism for not giving more stars to restaurants in Ireland, but this is because they have high standards and reputation to live up to. They are internationally recognised and people travel the world to eat in Michelin star restaurants. They cannot give out a star unless they are sure the food is not only excellent, but also very consistent. This is why they will eat in a restaurant several times before awarding a star. Although there are a few restaurants we think should have a star that don't and a few that  maybe shouldn't that do, Michelin is still a very good barometer of the best restaurants in a region.

We think that a restaurant critic should try, as much as possible, to stay anonymous. It surely has to be the best way of judging the food and service that a regular diner would receive. If a critic is known to a restaurant, which most professional critics are, then they will receive special treatment and the restaurant will pay special attention to the critic's food and service. We have heard many stories of critics receiving extra dishes, the best table etc. With special treatment, it must be very difficult to review the experience that other diners will receive. Of course, if a critic writes for a leading newspaper, restaurants will know who they are no matter how much they try to stay anonymous. But at a minimum they should make the reservation anonymously so they are not expected. Any critic that expects special attention when arriving in a restaurant is very hard to take seriously and is probably in the job for the wrong reasons.

A good critic must be impartial. If a reviewer is a friend of anyone involved in the restaurant then it must be harder to give a bad review.  A critic must approach every meal with an open mind and without any prejudgements and be willing to give the restaurant a positive of negative review. It may be easier not to build personal relationships, but then being anonymous would help this.

It cannot be in the critics interest to give a good or bad review. For example, if a reviewer is the type that garnishes restaurants with a plaque for display outside the front door with their name (or head) on it, then the more plaques they distribute the more publicity they get - so it is in their interest to dole out more plaques. Similarly a critic should not seek out controversy by looking for problems.

A critic who varnishes restaurants with plaques must be willing to regularly visit each of these restaurants to ensure it is still living up to the standards that earned this accolade. These plaques are not just a review of one meal, but are going to be there long after the critic decided it was worthy and the critic is staking their valued reputation against this restaurant. It is not enough to just put the year of recommendation on the plaque as it will still be on display long after this. It is a permanent review of the restaurant. So we wonder, when returning to a restaurant, does it happen that after a bad meal, the critic may say "Sorry chef that meal wasn't as good - please hand me my chisel so I can prise my plaque from your front door". Let's hope so.

Click here for a more recent review of Forest Avenue

As you can see from our site, we love to eat out and do so whenever our finances allow. But we try to be discerning when selecting which restaurant to visit - reluctant to waste our hard earned cash on an average meal or the next trendy new restaurant that opens with fanfare, but all too often fails to deliver. We love to cook at home so we are only interested in eating out if the food is something we would not be capable of making ourselves. Of course, we pop in somewhere if hunger hits while shopping in town or we don't feel inclined to cook. But for our more costly and planned nights out we pick our next meal carefully from a list of establishments in Ireland and around the world we have earmarked to pay a visit to. But how does a restaurant make it on to our eating-out 'to do' list?

We try to ignore the critics in Ireland. Too many times in the past we went to a restaurant that had been been given a positive review only to be disappointed. For some reason these critics seem to be very lucky as the food they are served always seems to be better than what we get. Also, if we were to go to every restaurant which received a good review or displayed a critic's plaque outside the front door we could out every night for weeks with no guarantee of gastronomic pleasure. So we don't pay much attention to critics these days.  Of course you cannot ignore critical acclaim completely. If a restaurant is getting celebrated in every paper and magazine, and even being touted as a certain Michelin star, then we will, one way or another, become aware of this and we may give in to our culinary curiosity and make a visit.

The reputation and pedigree of the chef can make us take notice. If a chef has come from another restaurant that we rate highly then it may be worth a visit. Although a chef coming from a top restaurant and going solo is no guarantee of success.

But mainly, we use the menu to choose our next feed. We look for dishes that would take skill and refinement to deliver. We like a menu that changes with the seasons; a menu that either stands out from the crowd and is a break from the ordinary or a classical menu that shows a true understanding of flavours and ingredients , but with no where to hide.

A couple of weeks ago we ticked a restaurant off our list and made a visit to Forest Avenue - a restaurant with a seasonal and intriguing menu from chef, John Wyer, formerly of L'Ecrivain and Mulberry Garden. We went with high hopes.

The meal started off very well and we were quickly happy with our choice. Before the first of the starters on the 4 (5 if you include the amuse bouches or the tea/coffee) course tasting menu, we were given home-made potato bread with home-made crème fraiche and 3 very nice treats. These comprised of an excellent bite of chicken liver parfait and apple, a clever nibble of ham and cheese sandwich with a warming, if not slightly boring, potato soup, and a tasty little dumpling. 

Then our first 'proper' course was a salad with the main ingredients of beetroot and celeriac, with slivers of duck pastrami. Despite having a lot of ingredients on the plate, this dish was very well balanced and put together very skilfully. It was, in fact, an excellent dish. 

Unfortunately the meal did not continue like this. The next dish of a soft egg served with fregola sarda pasta, sprouting broccoli and wild garlic was one dimensional and dull. It had no diversity of texture or flavour. The wild garlic did not come through and the texture of the whole dish was far too soft. It was the sort of dish you are glad to finish and only to do so to get to the next course quickly. Dishes with a soft egg, benefit from a contrasting texture - some bite or crunch, this dish did not have that. It reminded us of a duck egg and asparagus dish in Cleaver East which suffered from the same issue - although the dish in Cleaver East was worse. Only once have we had a soft egg dish done effectively without a contrasting texture, in Les Tablettes in Paris, which served us a wonderful dish of poached eggs.
The main courses continued to disappoint. A decent but easily forgettable lamb dish, with delicious belly and best-end cooked quite well, but slightly over if nitpicking, served with a sauce that was a bit watery. The other main was a scallop and carrot dish, whose main elements conflicted with each other and had one scallop that was severely under cooked. 
The dessert was a very tasty dish of rhubarb, pistachio and yoghurt. But it was presented in a amateurish way, with the yoghurt covering every other ingredient so they weren't visible.

The service was mostly good, with friendly, attentive and knowledgeable front of house. But it was awkward at times and missed some small details that lie in the gap between good service and very good service.

Forest Avenue is an interesting restaurant with potential and there is a lot to like. The chef is clearly passionate about his food and this comes across with the number of home made offerings. The staff, including the chef -  who served us some of courses - also seemed concerned that guests enjoyed the meal, which bodes well. But the food feels like a work in progress with too many dishes needing refinement. Maybe it is a work in progress. We will put it back on our list and return later in the year and see...