Two years ago Sophie took me to Dublin for my birthday. The plan was civilised enough: land at 9.30, abandon luggage at the hotel, drift about town for an hour and then lunch at Chapter One. A schedule built for adults. I, meanwhile, sat in Cuubo the night before drinking vodka martinis – extra dry, twist, freezing cold – with the kind of determination rarely seen. One became several, several became strategic memory loss, and the evening ended only just ahead of the airport taxi. We achieved that peculiar sort of flight familiar only to the catastrophically hungover: unconscious before take-off, resurrected by landing. And yet that lunch remains one of the best I’ve ever eaten. Not merely delicious – lots of things are delicious now, even McDonalds can produce spicy nuggets – but exacting, poised, almost offensively accomplished. Three hours of immaculate technique and ingredients so cosseted and pampered they probably travelled better than we did.
So now, two years later, we are back. Same flights. Same itinerary. Same idiot. This time I’m in Tropea the night before, drinking those glacial martinis as though hydration were somehow best achieved with vodka made from Jersey Royals. Once again I’m assuring Sophie that I won’t ruin our anniversary. Once again I’m back home at watching Taskmaster, making “one last” martini from the emergency vodka in the freezer and deciding that live cricket from the other side of the world is a more sensible use of the hours before a 3.30am alarm than unconsciousness. By the airport we have entered the familiar marital phase of mutual regret. Heads in hands. Praying for the mercy of a short flight and the anaesthetic blur of recycled cabin air. Old habits die hard, in what should be the last of the John McClane franchise.
At Chapter One, Chef is standing in reception. I tell him, proudly, pathetically, that I am hungover again. “Now is the time for hard liquor,” he says. He is absolutely right. An Old Fashioned arrives for me; a pear martini for Sophie. Alongside them come sablé biscuits punched through with the deep, damp funk of aged parmesan. Then the canapés arrive. A crisp celeriac sandwich with foie gras hidden inside like contraband. Faux pebbles filled with ajo blanco. A tartlet of sea bream tartare topped with tiny melon spheres that burst with sweetness and cold perfume.
Then the Comté and black truffle beignets arrive: glossy black cannonballs of molten cheese and truffle that I have thought about, with embarrassing frequency, for the last two years. They collapse instantly, flooding the mouth with hot dairy and fungus and salt, sharpened by a little jab of Jura wine gel. Obscene things. The sort of canapé that makes conversation stop dead. Finally there is an oyster tart, all iodine and tidal complexity, followed by a small cup of fish consommé carrying the ghost of bouillabaisse, but refined into something cleaner and more elegant. These are not snacks. They are arguments. Tiny, immaculate arguments for why Chapter One should hold three Michelin stars and not two. There is bread in the way of a guinness laminated roll and a baguette, some Irish butter and a dip of something that could be cheesy that I ate far too quickly to absorb.
My starter is essentially Dr Pepper, proving the age old argument that the secret ingredients really are almond, cherry, and fois gras. The goose liver is light and high quality, bound in a jelly the shade of Farrow & Ball Baked Cherry. There is a cherry puree, a cherry stuffed with almond purée, amaretto jelly, and a dot of something intensely almond. It eats like a dream. Sophie gets a chilled tomato soup, lobster salad, and tomato sorbet, straight into her top ten dishes of the year, and I’m glad given that I don’t get a sniff of it. We both get bouillabaisse with red mullet, John Dory, turbot, and lobster. It is, as you probably expect, the best bouillabaisse I have eaten. Saffron, citrus and cognac move through it quietly, never shouting, everything precise and composed. It is the best bouillabaisse I’ve ever eaten by some distance; the sort of dish that permanently damages your ability to enjoy lesser versions. Sophie says it has ruined bouillabaisse forever. She’s probably right.
And then there is the lamb for main. A lot of lamb. Arguably too much lamb for two people. A biblical quantity of sheep. A couple of huge cutlets from the rib sit on their own plate, whilst the plate in front houses slices of loin and fillet, baby pink and fleshy. There are basque snow drop peas, and asparagus from Luberon, wild garlic, lovage, and a jus spiked with mint. On the side are tiny, Ratte-like, spuds from the mountains at the south of France, confitted for hours in lamb fat and rosemary. They are, without question, the best potatoes I have ever eaten in my life, somewhat overshadowing that incredible lamb. We are later told this is the point. Chapter One, what a restaurant.
My dessert comes after I answer yes to the question “do you like Laphroig?”. I do. Have done since Doug McCarrick introduced it to me somewhere around my eighteenth birthday. It’s a chocolate, Laphroig, and salted caramel croustillant, all precision and piped peaks; a glorious, indulgent thing that almost makes me forget the bowl of vanilla and coffee to the side. Sophie has the wild strawberries with jasmine and rose, straight into her top ten dishes of the year, and I’m glad given that I get to eat the strawberry galette to the side. My wife doesn’t do pastry but she does do tableside Irish coffees and we round off the most impeccable of lunches with the most impeccable of petit fours. A candle in mojito flavoured chocolates for our anniversary. A bill for just over £400, which is my end of the anniversary deal.
Some months back I went for lunch with someone who may or may not have worked for a certain guide. Over a bottle of red that I can’t really afford in a nice city centre restaurant we spoke of love for eating out and for this type of restaurant in particular. He – sorry, they – said that with time it’s easy to see the difference between zero and one, and with one and two stars, but asked, could I in all seriousness tell the difference between two and three? My answer of course is no given I don’t work for them. What I can tell you is that there are three stars in the UK that are nowhere near as enjoyable as Chapter One. The definition of a three star is worthy of a special journey, which we’ve done twice to eat here and will do again in the near future. It is spectacular.
10/10
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