The very last thing you’d expect a seasoned restaurateur to do – particularly when people are going out less – is identify the least popular days of the week and decide, hey, I’m going to open a restaurant that operates only on those days. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are school nights, following on from a weekend well spent. With funds depleted and a focus on restoring them, these days tend to be scrubbed off the going-out map, unless, of course, you work in the restaurant industry and they’re your days off.
It’s a bank holiday Monday, we have a 5.45pm reservation, and in my book, that’s reason enough to step into a new restaurant. Well, it’s new in the sense that Mongoose is Keelan and Aaron Higgs’s latest venture, but the room is very familiar, exactly as it was when it used to house their other restaurant Variety Jones, now next door at 79 Thomas Street.
In case you’ve never been, Variety Jones is the restaurant that feels too cool and casual to have a Michelin star, until you taste the fire-led cooking on the chef’s choice set menu. Mongoose, on the other hand, offers an a la carte: four starters, pastas and mains, with one dessert or cheese to finish. There are no ordering requirements, so it makes sense to treat it as a series of sharing plates, although sharing the charred green asparagus with hollandaise sauce (€11.50) goes against all of my instincts. It’s from France – two large spears of new season asparagus, with melting slices of lardo draped over them. The hollandaise is perfect. You’ll want one each.
Grilled squid – tentacles and body – are piled over a coarse romesco (€11), interlaced with radicchio and rocket. A line of acidity balances the sweetness and char of the peppers, while finely chopped almonds give it body. Focaccia is €2, so order it to mop up the sauces.
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The wine list starts at €50, sitting awkwardly against the accessibly priced food. It’s sommelier-led, bypassing the money-spinning pinot grigios and sauvignon blancs, and is fairly priced for the quality offered, but it’s hard to justify nothing in the €40 range. In many ways, it’s more geared to by-the-glass drinking, starting at €13 topping out at €20. We order a bottle of Kir-Yianni Assyrtiko from Greece (€50), which is crisp and refreshing.
Variety Jones is known for its spaghetti alfredo, so it’s hard to resist ordering two pasta dishes. The parmesan agnolotti in butter and black pepper (€16) taste as though they’ve just been made. Not a single seam on the pasta has firmed up or dried out, leaving them silky smooth. The filling is liquid and each small pillow releases a stream of parmesan as you bite it. These are the best agnolotti I’ve ever eaten.
The fettuccine with house-made sausage and fennel ragù (€18.50) is as strong; silky pasta with just enough bite and crumbled sausage in a fennel-rich, creamy sauce. I’m beginning to think that Mongoose is the best place in the country for pasta.
We have one main, and yes, we’ve clearly over-ordered, but we’re on a roll and feel like we’re compiling our own tasting menu. The porchetta (€20), a large round slice of free-range pork, the loin dusted in chopped fennel, rosemary and garlic, is coiled in pork belly. The dark amber crackling shatters like glass, the pork fat rendered to a polished toffee finish. A bowl of hot potatoes (€6) scattered with chives, lemon zest and butter is exactly what it needs.
Blood orange cake (€10), similar to the Claudia Roden original, sits in a syrup with orange segments and is topped with a quenelle of milk ice cream. It is a restorative end to the meal.
What strikes me about Mongoose is how close it is to Variety Jones in style. That shouldn’t be a surprise, but, given the price point, I was expecting something simpler. The execution of the food is far from straightforward. Higgs just can’t help himself. It’s how he cooks, and his signature runs through the dishes, including the phenomenal pasta. While he is in the kitchen when we visit, the head chef is Shane Stanley who has worked with him in Variety Jones for years. Despite my misgivings about the entry level price on the wine list, I leave wanting to come back and eat everything all over again. I have a new favourite restaurant.
Dinner for two with a bottle of wine and 12.5 per cent service charge was €163
The verdict: This is my new favourite restaurant
Food provenance: Salters free-range pork, McLoughlin’s Butchers; fish, Glenmar; free-range chicken, La Rousse
Vegetarian options: Braised artichoke with fresh ricotta, parmesan agnolotti
Wheelchair access: Accessible room with no accessible toilet
Music: Soul, blues, rock and disco
