Cantina Valentina
Address: The Hoxton, Dublin, 1-5 Exchequer Street, Dublin D02 E044
Telephone: 01 2635020
Cuisine: Peruvian
Website: https://thehoxton.com/dublin/cantina-valentina/Opens in new window
Cost: €€€
I am instinctively suspicious of hotel restaurants. Too often they are upholstered into submission. Thankfully, Cantina Valentina, the Peruvian-inspired restaurant inside the new Hoxton on Exchequer Street in Dublin 2, sidesteps that fate.
The room is organised around a semicircular bar, faced in rough, widely spaced brickwork and topped in yellow marble, with lamps sitting directly on the counter. The same curve completes the circle on the far side as a raw bar.
We settle into a banquette at a generously sized table, sipping a very fine pisco sour classic (€12) and spicy Margarita (€14). A civilised way to start our meal, which is immediately improved by the arrival of chicharrónes (€9): hefty cubes of pork belly, deep-fried until the skin has blistered into a rigid, bubbled crust. The exterior shatters under pressure; beneath it, the meat stays dense and fatty, properly seasoned rather than sweetened or glazed. They’re served simply on a wooden board with a bowl of pale yellow ají dipping sauce, the fruity chilli adding a gentle punch.
Cantina Valentina takes its cue from the picanterías of Peru, informal, family-run places where flavour matters more than formality. The menu ranges widely without losing coherence, moving from bites and raw bar plates through skewers to more substantial main courses. Ceviches dominate the opening stretch, drawing on Peruvians’ fondness for acidity and heat, before the focus shifts to grilled meats and seafood, and finally to fuller plates built around rice, duck and whole fish, including a Peruvian sea bream for two (€72).
Head bartender Neo Zain making a classic pisco sour in Cantina Valentina. Photograph: Alan Betson 
Ceviche chef Savio Benicio at Cantina Valentina. Photograph: Alan Betson 
Cantina Valentina steps away from its hotel identity. Photograph: Alan Betson 
Cantina Valentina at The Hoxton. Photograph: Alan Betson
Lomo saltado (€11) arrives on a skewer, a tightened take on a Peruvian Nikkei classic – stir-fried beef, seasoned with soy sauce and vinegar, the flavour driven by the heat of the pan. The marinated Hereford beef is cooked through yet still juicy, well seared, set against a slick of sweet-savoury piquillo pepper and finished with shoestring fries, light and sharply crisp.
There is a danger, in restaurants that lean heavily on ceviche and raw dishes, that everything begins to feel like a variation on the same cold idea. Cantina Valentina avoids that by offering five very different takes on it. The scallop ceviche (€18) will wake up even the most somnolent of palates. Small, translucent cubes of scallop sit in a shallow pool of jalapeño tiger’s milk; cold, sharp, saline, and citrus-forward. Toasted cancha corn is scattered thickly over the top, bringing crunch and warmth and a faint sweetness that plays against the heat. Green apple lifts the acidity with a bit of crunch. It is clean-tasting and very delicious.
The tuna ceviche (€19) works differently. Where the scallop dish bites, this one is more restrained. Neat cubes of raw tuna sit in chilled dashi, savoury rather than acidic, avocado softens the edges and ají panca oil adds a slow, smoky warmth. You pour over the ponzu yourself, the Nikkei-influenced note registering as controlled yuzu citrus rather than brightness for its own sake. The portions are generous; one ceviche is enough for two.
Duck rice (€32) shifts the cooking away from sharpness and into something more sustaining. A single duck leg arrives deeply browned and crisp-skinned, the fat rendered down until the surface crackles under the fork. It sits on a tight mound of arroz chaufa, the grains stained yellow with saffron dashi and cooked to a soft, oily richness. The sauce pools lightly around the plate, savoury, faintly spiced. It’s filling, competent, and quietly satisfying.
Desserts include suspiro de limeña, Peruvian chocolate tart with toasted quinoa ice cream, and tres leches, but really we only have room for the pisco colonel (€11), a citrus sorbet served in a wide coupe, tasting like a yuzu slushy followed by a firm, adult thump of pisco. Bracing and assured, it quietly echoes the clean sharpness of the ceviche.
Classic ceviche. Photograph: Alan Betson 
Tuna ceviche. Photograph: Alan Betson 
Duck rice. Photograph: Alan Betson 
Tres leches cake. Photograph: Alan Betson
What lingers is how un-hotel-like it all feels. No piped serenity, just a kitchen cooking with intent and a room that lets it shine. The food circles a few clear ideas: clean raw fish, crisp fat, and seasoning used with restraint, and executes them with confidence. Even when dishes echo one another, they do so deliberately. The scallop ceviche and the tuna ceviche are siblings, not duplicates. Meat dishes rely on fiery heat and timing rather than theatre, while the heavier plates are unapologetically filling. Some prices invite scrutiny, but generous portions soften the blow, and sharing a main after a few small plates makes sense. For a restaurant living inside a global brand, it feels oddly free and independent.
Dinner for two with three cocktails was €138.
The Verdict: Confident Peruvian cooking inside the new Hoxton.
Food provenance: Wrights Fishmongers; McLoughlin’s free-range chicken and pork, Silverhill duck.
Vegetarian options: Sweet potato hummus, smoked miso aubergine, quinoa risotto with burnt avocado, superfood salad with sweet potato and avocado.
Wheelchair access: Fully accessible with an accessible toilet.
Music: Peruvian, Afro-Latin and bossa nova.