Richmond
Address: 43 Richmond St S, Portobello, Dublin 2, D02 X499
Telephone: 01 478 8783
Cuisine: Modern International
Website: https://www.richmondrestaurant.ie/Opens in new window
Cost: €€€
It is rare to find a restaurant that takes vegetarian dishes seriously. Too often it is a that-will-do nod; a pasta dish, a risotto or similar. But if you examine the line-up carefully – a fun occupation, I know – you will perhaps find that their genesis is slightly suspect. Quite often, they are meat dishes with the animal removed.
Richmond restaurant in Portobello, with its narrow grey frontage and discreet red neon sign, is easy to miss, and is probably not the first to come to mind for vegetarian food. Yet over the years, it has become a family favourite. Not just because we have a vegetarian who has since drifted into pescatarian waters, but also because the vegetarian dishes are often the ones worth ordering anyway.
Brunch has been quietly retired and replaced with a fixed price Sunday lunch menu, two courses for €35 and three for €45, and sitting on the banquette by the window, looking out on to Richmond Street, it is hard to imagine a more frenetic format ever suiting this atmospheric room, with its worn wooden floor and whitewashed brick walls. Life drifts by like a movie outside – posh pooches, rescue mutts and their humans, a neighbourhood vibe brushing against city traffic. It is excellent viewing for a long lunch.
Russell Wilde and Eoin Foyle are the industry stalwarts behind Richmond, and chef David O’Byrne, who cut his teeth in La Mere Zou and Mulberry Gardens, has been heading up the kitchen since it opened 11 years ago. In 2018, they landed a Michelin Bib Gourmand, an accolade they’ve succeeded in keeping over the years, which is no small feat.
The Sunday lunch menu is concise. Three choices for starters and mains – fish, meat and vegetarian – two desserts and cheese.
With the sun pouring through the window, the cannelloni feels exactly right for the moment. A plump tube of pasta, sealed at both ends, sits in a shallow pool of glossy brown jus, capped with a foamy cep sauce. The goat’s cheese filling, flecked with shiitake, brings both sharpness and lightness, lifted with pickled peppers and shimeji mushrooms.
Across the table, the duck tartlet arrives in a neat round of golden pastry, laden with shredded duck and leeks, crowned with a mustard slaw, and dressed with a rich sobrassada sauce. It is a hearty dish, but it’s not too heavy.
The wine list is a concise one-pager, with 15 by-the-glass options and a gratifying number of decent bottles hovering around the €40 mark. A Duc de Morny, Picpoul de Pinet at €43 has Sunday lunch written all over it. With its light, crisp, mineral edge, it’s particularly good with fish.
Duck tartlet starter at Richmond. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien 
Richmond in Portobello, Dublin 2. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
Gnocchi is a dish that sounds quite simple, but too often they end up being gummy and dense. The secret – although I’ve only made them once – is a light hand, floury potatoes and a minimum use of flour to bring them together. They can be small and delicate, vanishing as soon as you pop them in your mouth, or larger with a more rustic edge.
At Richmond, they fall firmly into the second camp, more the size of a salad potato, and quite the largest gnocchi I’ve ever eaten. They are gloriously light, sitting in a pale crème fraîche sauce with a delicate touch of lemon. Toasted hazelnuts are scattered across the plate for texture, while batons of new season white asparagus and green beans bring freshness.
Gnocchi golden beets (asparagus on the day of our critic’s visit), green beans and hazelnut at Richmond. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
The grilled cod arrives as a thick fillet, tinged with gold, sitting in a light bisque aerated into a foam. Spirals of squid, strands of broccolini, two swipes of broccoli purée and a scattering of capers add another layer of flavour, with a cast iron dish of crispy herb potatoes on hand for mopping-up duty. The fish breaks into translucent flakes, but is perhaps the slightest shade overcooked.
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Dessert is shared, and as we’re already well familiar with the sticky date pudding, we go for the white chocolate mousse, creamy and delicious with the sweetness kept in check. Poached rhubarb, like a beacon of spring, brings bright, high-toned flavours which are echoed in the quenelle of sorbet. It could only be improved by yet another scoop of that wonderful sorbet.
At Richmond, it feels like you’re resetting the clock, in the best possible way. Back to simpler days when Sunday lunch in a convivial room with waiters who treat you like regulars was a splendid idea. Happily, it still is.
Lunch for two with a bottle of wine was €123.
White chocolate mousse at Richmond. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien 
Richmond offers a three-course menu with a genuinely good vegetarian option. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien 
At Richmond, it feels like you’re resetting the clock, in the best possible way. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
The verdict: A three-course menu with a genuinely good vegetarian option
Food provenance: Pork from Salters Free Range Farm, duck from Feighcullen Farm, Glenmar Shellfish and Iona Fruit Farm
Vegetarian options: Goat’s cheese and shiitake mushroom cannelloni, and gnocchi with white asparagus
Wheelchair access: Accessible room with no accessible toilet
Music: Bob Marley, Doobie Brothers and Van Morrison