Marco Pierre White seems to like Dublin. First he opened his grill on Dawson Street and now Frankies in Temple Bar. For Frankies he has teamed up with jockey Frankie Detorri, but this is no Planet Frankie ego excercise and the jockey’s influence seems only to extend to the Italian food on the menu.

Set in the perfect location on Temple Bar Square, Frankies has taken over from Fitzers but changed the downstairs into a cocktail lounge. Other than that things seem to be pretty much the same, even the staff hasn’t changed.

When we went on a quiet Tuesday evening, we were seated and treated with warmth and attention by the staff. I’ve read elsewhere that the staff aren’t great but no complaints here, quite the contrary, I thought they were excellent. Although, waiters,  if a person doesn’t ask what something is on the menu, you can assume they know what they’re ordering.

Having said that, we asked for some guidance on the white wine and were served one of the nicest bottles I have had in a long time. It was dry but in the mouth, the taste started at the tip of your tongue and then filled your taste buds. And it wasn’t even nearly at the expensive end of the menu.

Anyway, the menu is pretty good if a bit bog standard Italian; pasta, pizza, steak and chicken, with the addition of some burgers and a couple of Marco Pierre White specials.

My partner and I chose the Caprese between us to start. This is one of those dishes that’s all about the standard of the ingredients. When all that’s on the plate is cheese, tomato and basil, there’s nowhere to hide any deficiencies. This one was fine, the cheese was creamy and moist but there was hardly any tomato, and what was there were halves of tiny baby tomatoes. There just wasn’t enough to compliment the cheese. The basil was just there as decoration and didn’t add to the flavour at all.

For mains I went for rib-eye steak with rocket and parmesan shavings, and fries on the side. The streak was delicious, juicy and perfectly cooked. But the chef and plonked the salad and cheese on top of it. Obviously this had no effect on the taste but if you have a gorgeous piece of meat why hide it under a bushel?

Then there were the fries. The only reason they could be that salty was, as my partner said, the chef must smoke. Seriously, a few of them and all I could taste of the steak was salt. Awful. It look a few glasses of water to get rid of the salt and get back to the meat.

My partner had Gnocchi Sorentina. Or should I say she has a bowl of sorentina sauce with about 7 pieces of gnocchi in it. It was tasty and no complaints at all except there was hardly any of the pasta.

We skipped dessert, as usual, and our bill including that gorgeous wine came to €73.

The standard of food, as you would expect from anything with Marco Pierre White’s name on it, is good, but there is a lot that can be improved in this eater’s opinion.

Popularity: 1% [?]

No related posts.