Cleaver East - Review

Cleaver East is a joint venture between Michelin-starred chefs: Oliver Dunne (from Bon Appetit) and Rory Carville (former head chef in the Locks Brasserie).  The restaurant opened its doors only a few months ago but already sparked so much controversy. It seems that people either love it or hate it and of course there is the whole battle between Lucinda O'Sullivan and Oliver Dunne. You can read about this here and here.

I was dying to try the restaurant and be able to judge for myself, so we booked a table for Sunday evening. Mr PB and myself, we like small-sized dishes and often opt for the tasting menu or order just a couple of starters each, so we were excited about the "small plates" concept and were looking forward to our meal.
Upon our arrival we were shown to our table and our waitress explained to us that Cleaver East is a tasting plate restaurant and advised to choose 3/4 dishes per person to share. The menu looked good, I would have liked to try most of the dishes on it.

I went for the St Tola Goats Cheese Parfait.

The dish looked and tasted absolutely divine (and this is coming from a person that doesn't like goats cheese!). Silky smooth goats cheese parfait, served with delicious beetroot and lovely crunchy walnut praline. This dish was a definite winner!

I also ordered the Scotch Egg, mainly because I've read so many good reviews about this dish and I was not disappointed. Lovely soft-boiled quail egg, smoked haddock, bit unusual but oh so delicious!

My partner ordered the Lobster Dumplings served with oriental mushrooms and lemongrass broth. He declared the dish tasty but not memorable.

The last two plates to arrive were Pan Fried Scallops with Crispy Pancetta and Potato Bubbles - very good, beautifully cooked scallops

and Cushion of Venison with Braised Red Cabbage and Wild Mushrooms. Unfortunately the venison was a bit tough, also Mr PB was convinced that he was served beef instead of venison, as he found the meat not very "gamey". I've tried a bit of the red cabbage and it was very good.

We decided to go for 2 desserts. I ordered the Lemon Cannelloni with Raspberry Curd and Raspberry Sorbet. It was yummy, very light and refreshing but I felt like there was something missing, a little biscuit would have made the dish perfect.

Mr PB went for the Cleaver East Twisted Banoffee, which was (as you can guess) a deconstructed banoffee pie. It was declared very good (I didn't even get to try any of it!!)

So, what did we think of the restaurant? The food was very nicely presented, some dishes were very good, some average but there was nothing we didn't like. The portions were quite big and in my opinion reasonably priced (from €6 to €14 per plate). Before visiting Cleaver East I've read comments of people saying that the portions sizes were very small and they left the restaurant feeling hungry and I was actually surprised when the first dishes arrived as I didn't expect for them to be so big. Five savoury, two sweet plates and three glasses of French Sauvignon Blanc between the two of us left us feeling just nice. We liked the "small plates" concept but we both agreed that it would be better if the dishes were served one at a time. Some of the dishes we ordered were excellent but served together with other plates the flavours just didn't work.
The staff were friendly but seemed very disorganized. We were asked several times by 3 different waiters to place our order after we have already ordered, to make it even more comical we were asked if we were ready to order by the girl that took our order a few minutes before!!! I could also hear people at other tables complaining about being served the wrong plates. The service definitely needs to improve!

Will we back? Yes, the food is good and we still want to try the other dishes on the menu. Hopefully by then the negative bits will be ironed out.

Cleaver East
The Clarence Hotel,
East Essex Street,
Temple Bar,
Dublin 2
www.cleavereast.ie