Sometimes you can tell immediately when you’re going to like a place. I step out of the cold January air into a long room across from The Hairy Lemon on Drury Street. It’s flanked by a wall of tall warehouse style windows facing a low seating bar that reminds me of a Barcelona cantina, with tables cozily squeezed in the middle and a chipper down the back. Super Miss Sue has opened her doors – even if she isn’t quite finished yet.
Super Miss Sue adds to restauranteur John Farrell’s set that is made up of 777, Dillinger’s and The Butcher Grill. Though she’s still only a chipper and a café, there’s a restaurant and a Gin and Campari Bar on the way this spring. “SMS is a bit more of an old-school cafe,” John tells us. “You mightn’t take your Gran to 777, but you could definitely bring her to SMS! The cafe and take-away is phase one of Super Miss Sue. Phase two will be upmarket. The food will still be seafood but it will be more high-end.”
We sit down to plates of seafood and look around for Sue. We find her in the loo in retro togs making sweet with a deep sea diver. Farrell tells me Sue is “an It-Girl – a bit Paris Hilton, a bit Mae West” which explains the choice of six different types of oysters on the menu, all priced according to fanciness. We grab half a dozen Connemara oysters at €2 a pop and hope that Sue is in her Mae West mood tonight. Sourdough toast with jalapeno and honey butter (€3) makes a welcome entrance too.
A Cod Brandade Scotch Eggs (€9) is delivered and, jaysus, it’s good. Its crispy coat gives way to a fluffy fish-and-potato inside before revealing a gooey, perfectly cooked boiled egg. Instead of a requested plate of kale, our gorgeous French waitress brings us a plate of quail (they don’t charge us for it but it’s priced at €10) and we’re so glad she did. It’s one of two non-seafood dishes on the menu when we visit (the other is a hefty steak) and it’s mad tasty; flattened, crispy-fried and juicy. The side order of kale (€4) also makes us happy with its al dente goodness. Meanwhile, our plate of clams (€12) could do with a bit more personality and leaves us feeling a little underwhelmed. We’re not expecting dessert to make such an impact but the lemon tart (€7) is pretty close to perfection on the sweet scale. We love our macchiatos (€2 each) that are brewed in the Spanish style of slightly charred but deeply flavourful.
Between courses, I’m taken for a look around the basement space underneath the Drury Street car park that will house Sue’s finer dining side. A room as large as the cafe with its own entrance to Drury Street, it’s just about past bricks and mortar stages but Farrell is optimistic we’ll see it open in the next couple of months.
We visit Cervi (the chipper) a few nights later and the chips are what every young potato grows up dreaming of becoming. Slightly crisp on the outside and utterly fluffy on the inside, they embody the delicious hope that every sweaty bag of chips instill but which few deliver. The smoked haddock has a good batter that’s crispy yet not over greasy and I like the crunchy cornichons its accompanying tartare sauce holds. It’s an enormous portion that is plenty to share between two. It’s priced at €12.50 which feels like a lot for fish and chips – even though what we get is actually really good value for money. Price and provenance are connected and I don’t doubt that Farrell has applied the high standards when sourcing Super Miss Sue’s fish. But I think this is more an issue of quantity and not quality. If Cervi could offer half the portion at half the price…well, let’s just say I’ll be eating plenty of fish and chips dinners this year if they do.
Visiting a restaurant in its first few weeks of opening can be a gamble and there are minor tweaks to be made here – the price of the fish and chips being my main contribution to that short list. When we visited, there was a wealth of specials which are all dishes being live trialled to see if they have a permanent place on the menu so things were still evolving in those opening weeks. I’m not quite sure what to expect with the restaurant (other than seafood of course) but, from what I picked up from the café and chipper, I have high hopes for it.
Super Miss Sue
Units 2-3
Drury Street Car Park
Dublin 2
01-6799009
Words: Aoife McElwain
