The latest offering by brothers Keelan and Aaron Higgs in Dublin 8 delivers on great grub with stylish simplicity
Pork and fennel sausage, mash and gravy. Photo: Lucinda O’Sullivan
Fancy having your bangers and mash cooked by a Michelin-star chef? Then I have just the place for you. It’s the new Mongoose by brothers Keelan and Aaron Higgs of Variety Jones note. It’s a funny thing isn’t it that when many chefs finally achieve the Michelin Holy Grail, with the assurance and confidence it gives them, they then want to be all cool and casual with another off-beat side venture that keeps them in touch with the hip crowd rather than the oft more pretentious rubber tyre brigade.
Mind you, the Greystones boys were never pretentious with Variety Jones, which they opened in late 2018, having done all the hard graft themselves, cooking over fire in a dinky former tattoo parlour with industrial vibes, the location falling within the ‘interesting and fringe’ category. It was a time when D2 restaurant premises within the golden mile of St Stephen’s Green were all being snapped up by the big boys of the restaurant biz – who subsequently fell apart – but D8 was on the up. In 2020, the brothers achieved their first Michelin star, which they’ve since retained.