Hanger. Is there a more over-powering emotion than hunger-induced anger? My stress levels are totally connected to how many cookies I’ve had in any given day. I’m starving when we arrive on a Friday night to Drury Buildings – recently opened by Declan O’Regan and team aka the folks behind Fade Street from L’Gueuleton, The Bar With No Name and Hogan’s – and my hanger levels are high.
We’re greeted with a smile and a choice. Would you like to sit downstairs or upstairs? And which menu would you like to eat from, the Bites or the A La Carte menu? I panic. There’s a choice? A tantrum ensues: “What do you mean there’s a choice?! I want you to decide for me! Why are you doing this to me?!” Luckily, this all takes place in my head and I manage to make a decision. We head upstairs to the classy dining rooms and order from the A La Carte menu.
Drury Buildings boasts a well-equipped bar and we start the meal with a Dark & Stormy (€11.90) and a mocktail (€6) of the sweet and citrusy variety. I recognise our waitress Trish from my most memorable dining experience of 2013 – she was a performer/waitress in Neil Watkins’ Dinner And A Show which played at last year’s Fringe Festival. We’re on first name terms by the time our first morsels appear and I love her. I love our starters too – a single oyster shot each drenched in Bloody Mary sauce and a brilliant plate of Coppa di Testa (€12.50) with these amazing caper berries that are like tiny, salty and sweet dried figs. There are chunks of candied fruit around the cold cut of meat made from the pig’s head. Drury Buildings version doesn’t have much jelly to speak of but I’m cool with that.
I have a very piggy evening all together with my choice of mains in the Guanciale de Montagna, a plate of pork cheek, pasta and cheese, over-priced at €19.50. The Guanciale is like really delicious, fatty bacon but its fattiness is overwhelming when all it’s fighting with is pasta and cheese. I always expect too much of pasta dishes and, in fairness to me, at nearly €20 a plate this one should have delivered. Medallions of fillet beef (pretty fancy medallions at €26.50 a plate) disappear along with their accompanying Jerusalem artichoke and porcini gratin having been deliciously soaked in a chianti juice.
We share a bogglingly boozy Campari and orange cake (€4) that is the cat’s pyjamas. It’s washed down with unmemorable macchiatos (€3.20 each) and our bill, which also includes a bottle of sparkling water (€5.10) and an enviable glass of Valdemar Rioja (€8), comes to €107.90.
There was something missing from Drury Buildings that stopped me from falling for it immediately. The menus are strong so it’s not an identity issue – the Bites, A La Carte and drinks menu all make you want to be there. All that was lacking on our first visit was atmosphere, which was perhaps the result of a typically quiet January night. Upstairs was bereft of bodies hibernating after their post-Christmas excess, where the downstairs bar had a little more buzz to it. I think that’s the point of the two rooms – you get to choose where you want to be depending on your mood.
Drury Buildings
52 – 55 Drury Street
Dublin 2
01-9602095
