{"id":365848,"date":"2026-03-26T08:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/365848\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T08:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:07:15","slug":"this-super-sunday-lunch-is-a-steal-and-vegetarians-will-love-it-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/365848\/","title":{"rendered":"This super Sunday lunch is a steal, and vegetarians will love it \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richmond <\/p>\n

\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 <\/p>\n

Address: 43 Richmond St S, Portobello, Dublin 2, D02 X499<\/p>\n

Telephone: 01 478 8783<\/p>\n

Cuisine: Modern International<\/p>\n

Website: https:\/\/www.richmondrestaurant.ie\/Opens in new window<\/a><\/p>\n

Cost: \u20ac\u20ac\u20ac<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 a fun occupation, I know \u2013 you will perhaps find that their genesis is slightly suspect. Quite often, they are meat dishes with the animal removed.<\/p>\n

Richmond restaurant<\/a> in Portobello<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Brunch has been quietly retired and replaced with a fixed price Sunday lunch menu, two courses for \u20ac35 and three for \u20ac45, 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 \u2013 posh pooches, rescue mutts and their humans, a neighbourhood vibe brushing against city traffic. It is excellent viewing for a long lunch.<\/p>\n

Russell Wilde and Eoin Foyle are the industry stalwarts behind Richmond, and chef David O\u2019Byrne, 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\u2019ve succeeded in keeping over the years, which is no small feat. <\/p>\n

The Sunday lunch menu is concise. Three choices for starters and mains \u2013 fish, meat and vegetarian \u2013 two desserts and cheese. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s cheese filling, flecked with shiitake, brings both sharpness and lightness, lifted with pickled peppers and shimeji mushrooms.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s not too heavy.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0This Michelin-starred restaurant in Dublin has real quality and a three-course lunch from \u20ac55Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The wine list is a concise one-pager, with 15 by-the-glass options and a gratifying number of decent bottles hovering around the \u20ac40 mark. A Duc de Morny, Picpoul de Pinet at \u20ac43 has Sunday lunch written all over it. With its light, crisp, mineral edge, it\u2019s particularly good with fish.<\/p>\n

\"DuckDuck tartlet starter at Richmond. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien \"RichmondRichmond in Portobello, Dublin 2. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien <\/p>\n

Gnocchi is a dish that sounds quite simple, but too often they end up being gummy and dense. The secret \u2013 although I\u2019ve only made them once \u2013 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. <\/p>\n

At Richmond, they fall firmly into the second camp, more the size of a salad potato, and quite the largest gnocchi I\u2019ve ever eaten. They are gloriously light, sitting in a pale cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche 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.<\/p>\n

\"GnocchiGnocchi golden beets (asparagus on the day of our critic’s visit), green beans and hazelnut at Richmond. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien <\/p>\n

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 pur\u00e9e 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. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Exceptional Iberian cooking at Dublin\u2019s newest openingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Dessert is shared, and as we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

At Richmond, it feels like you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

Lunch for two with a bottle of wine was \u20ac123.<\/p>\n

\"WhiteWhite chocolate mousse at Richmond. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien \"RichmondRichmond offers a three-course menu with a genuinely good vegetarian option. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien \"AtAt Richmond, it feels like you\u2019re resetting the clock, in the best possible way. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien <\/p>\n

The verdict: A three-course menu with a genuinely good vegetarian option <\/p>\n

Food provenance: Pork from Salters Free Range Farm, duck from Feighcullen Farm, Glenmar Shellfish and Iona Fruit Farm<\/p>\n

Vegetarian options: Goat\u2019s cheese and shiitake mushroom cannelloni, and gnocchi with white asparagus<\/p>\n

Wheelchair access: Accessible room with no accessible toilet <\/p>\n

Music: Bob Marley, Doobie Brothers and Van Morrison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richmond \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 Address: 43 Richmond St S, Portobello, Dublin 2, D02 X499 Telephone: 01…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4507,93,13355,61,60,709,130862,5863],"class_list":["post-365848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dublin-2","tag-entertainment","tag-food-production","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-portobello","tag-restaurant-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}