Allta na Farraige
Address: 1 Three Locks Square, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2, D02 A5W7
Telephone: 083 326 5859
Cuisine: Seafood
Website: https://www.allta.ieOpens in new window
Cost: €€€
Caviar has picked up a bit of a reputation among chefs for being a “lazy” ingredient, a shorthand for luxury.
If you want to signal that your menu is fine dining, pop open a tin and gild another fine ingredient – scallops, for instance – with a quenelle of caviar. It can bring a lovely saline edge, but also a salty price. Unless that is, if you are Adam Handling at Michelin-starred Frog in Covent Garden, London, who famously lists caviar at cost price.
At Allta na Farraige, 10g of Royal Belgian caviar is €20 – not quite cost price, but not gouging either – and if you’ve never tried it, this is a good place to start.
But mostly, it’s what you don’t see at Niall Davidson’s new seafood bar, next to his fine-dining restaurant Allta in Grand Canal Dock, that makes the difference. I mean, who puts lobster and prawn oil in a spicy margarita (€16)? And can you really make one with Pangur poitín instead of tequila? Apparently yes. O’Maro Irish Amaro, sorrel and parsley super juice, and lacto-fermented chilli give it real heat, while the shellfish oil brings an elusive richness.
Cocktail specialist Alan Mulvihill created the cocktails here using exclusively Irish spirits from independent producers. The carrot old fashioned (€16) is another mind-bending drink, made with Killowen Rum and Raisin Single Malt, carrot and brown butter, poured over a large clear ice cube, topped with a white chocolate petit four filled with peanut miso.
Fleshy Ballinakill Bay oysters (€5 each) sharpened with nam pla and seaweed hot sauce are a refreshing bite from the tight nine-dish menu developed by Davidson. So too is the crab (€15), folded through a roe emulsion and served with crispy lavash flatbread.
We watch Spanish chef David Preda at work from the marble counter that curves around the fully open kitchen, cold dishes being prepped while smoke curls up from the Japanese konro grill for the hotter ones. We are close enough to see everything, but despite the chopsticks and neatly folded napkins, it’s not chef’s table theatre.
The bluefin tuna (€19) is a more complex dish, sliced from a loin in a single long pull toward the body, then pressed flat in a tortilla press. It is laid over house-made ricotta humming with smoke from blackcurrant branches, with two small pools of blood orange syrup, and finished with a mushroom essence that brings a mirin-like sweetness.
Chef David Preda creating a seabass ceviche, with winter citrus, white asparagus and sea urchin. Photograph: Alan Betson 
Seabass Ceviche, with winter citrus, white asparagus and sea urchin prepared by chef David Preda with whiplash pilsner, tomato water base, worcester, nam pla, habanero and demi glaze. Photograph: Alan Betson 
I mean, who puts lobster and prawn oil in a spicy margarita (€16)? Photograph: Alan Betson 
All Allta na Farraige needs now is bread. Which I hear will soon be on the menu. Photograph: Alan Betson
We move on to the hot dishes, and the barbecue scallop (€16) served in the shell is an example of how Davidson can magically build layer upon layer of flavour into a single dish. The scallop is cut into pieces and lightly barbecued so it’s tender and barely cooked. The lobster XO sauce, built on a base of celery, onion, ginger, garlic and habanero chillies, has the richness and depth of a carefully made bisque, all brought together by pork fat and tiny pieces of pancetta. The chewy dulse counters it with an iron tang. The only thing I find puzzling is why there is no bread on the menu. This sauce is far too good to leave behind. Fingers are employed.
The same problem arises with a bowl of Connemara cockles pil pil (€24). Cooked on the grill until the small shells absorb the smoke and open, the vivid green sauce is quietly brilliant with collagen from hake heads bringing texture and depth to the parsley and wild garlic pil pil. Really, no bread? This one is trickier to mop up, but I manage nonetheless.
As ever, pastry chef Lali Gonzalez dazzles. Kombu, braised several times until it loses its chew and salinity, is made into a condiment and served with milk ice cream, a smashed bergamot ice and lemon granita, dusted with dashi and seaweed powder and topped with two milk skin crisps (€9).
As the menu is changing, there’s a treat for diners: a taste of the previous dessert, a soft-serve oyster and Guinness Foreign Extra Stout ice cream, striped with oyster caramel and served in an oyster shell.
I have always loved Davidson’s food, and what he is doing at his new seafood bar is equally original and thrilling. There is a litheness to his cooking, which allows flavours to build and reverberate, and here, at a casual but very smart counter in an eerily quiet stretch of town, he pulls it off again. All it needs now is bread. Which I hear will soon be on the menu.
Allta na Farraige, One Three Locks Square Docklands, is run by Niall Davidson.
Photograph: Alan Betson
Dinner for two, with two cocktails, was €125.
The verdict: Stunning seafood dishes crafted by a talented chef
Food provenance: Glenmar seafood, David Keane oysters, Lissadell cockles, and Fuentes Group tuna
Vegetarian options: None at seafood bar
Wheelchair access: Fully accessible with an accessible toilet
Music: Funk, soul and rock, and DJ Meghan Elward-Duffy at weekends