Restaurant review: The Arch in Cobh offers limited food options but wine list delivers

Recently rummaging around in his treasure chest, Captain Seadog happened across an old strip of pictures taken in Cork’s Kent Station’s photobooth back when the dawn of time was still just a script awaiting the green light for project approval. 

The pair of us, mugging gamely for the camera with all the blithe bravado unique to teenagers barely turned 15, are heading off to Dublin for a few days on a grand adventure, the finer details of which would put the heart across me were I to even imagine a fraction of same now happening to my current brace of teenage progeny.

But those are tales for another day and decades later the pair of us are back in Kent Station together for the first time since that teenage ‘photoshoot’, but now waiting to take the train to Cobh. To spend the evening dining in a wine bar.

I’m very partial to the train and the journey to Cobh has always been a particular pleasure, one I have made frequently over the years, but this is the first such journey in pursuit of food for Cobh has never really had much of a reputation for putting on the nosebag nor ever exhibited any excessive apparent interest in developing one.

The town itself presents as one of Ireland’s most becoming seaside locations, gorgeous, refined architecture, serried rows of Victorian houses, stacked all the way up the vertiginous hill on which it is built, affording a splendid view over that stretch of water where the mouth of Cork harbour meets the open sea.

Formerly Queenstown from whence so many sailed to America and the last docking point of the Titanic, it has utterly compelling history stashed away in every corner and in recent times has become a very popular stop for the cruise ships, adding further to its touristic allure, yet the town appears immune to expanding its night time hospitality offering into anything featuring genuine culinary creativity.

Which is why the opening of a wine bar in the heart of the town’s waterfront, is a rather ballsy move — put it this way, when Captain SeaDog and I walk in for our Saturday night booking, our server presumes, as emerges later, that we are a gay couple, purely on the basis that straight Irish men in Cobh don’t go into wine bars unless dragged in by the women in their lives.

While natural wine bars with some highly creative small plate menus are springing up all over the country, The Arch is of the old school; in other words, there is zero kitchen to speak save a small sandwich oven behind the counter to heat up toasties and bought-in sausage or mushroom rolls. 

It is only 7.30pm yet all such hot food options are no longer available. There are some sandwiches but we haven’t just travelled on Cork’s own ‘Orient Express’ to wind up eating sandwiches and the remainder of the menu is a selection of the usual suspects, bought-in and ready to serve delicatessen delicacies. 

Food is there to serve a secondary and supporting role to the wine, the real star of the show — putting further pressure on the wine list to deliver.

It is an interesting list without being wildly avant garde but such a move would constitute commercial suicide in an extremely conservative dining town. 

There are some left-field conventional choices, along with a whole lot of organic and biodynamic options and while it pleases me to see a couple of full-blown ‘natural’ wines, none set the heart to racing with wild abandon. 

Commendably, many of the wines are available by the glass, allowing decent bandwidth for roaming across the list.

We begin with Mas Coutelou Vin des Amis, a rustic and vibrant blend of cinsault, syrah, and grenache, bursting with spicy black fruit which we drink with creamy, verdant nocellara olives and decent smoked almonds, solid companions for a most drinkable bottle.

Of the three ‘main course’ sharing plate options, burrata is one, served on a bed of olive tapenade with basil pesto, but the burrata too is unavailable, a rather dispiriting pattern beginning to emerge with three of the more ‘substantial’ items unavailable before the biggest night of a restaurant’s week has even got its second wind.

Instead we have the olive tapenade on its own and very decent it is too, olive’s brininess leavened with rich peppery oil, better again with very good sourdough bought in from The Grumpy Bakers, in Midleton. 

We also order an excellent house olive oil, salt and good balsamic vinegar for further dipping to aid our sipping.

Next to our glass is a French pinot blanc (La Cabane, Domaine Leon Boesch), full bodied, with zippy grapefruit citrus and a pleasing finish which works very well with the meats on our final food order of the evening, a sharing board of mixed cheeses and cured jamon and salami.

Then two more glasses, Extra Ball, a light and juicy French cabernet franc, and Italian Mora & Memo, Cannonau, more full-bodied, with a lingering spicy finish, both finding their own accommodation with three very good cheeses, including a real favourite of the last few years, Triple Rose, Ballylisk.

A special shout out to our server, Jasper, who, though flying solo for most of the evening, handles a room that clips along at a tidy pace, though it is never more than half full.

Also to be noted is the wonderful transformation of the space itself, from original dereliction to a genuinely delightful and bright room and with a lovely courtyard to the rear.

I would sincerely hope this is the beginning of a proper expansion of Cobh’s dining options but that will only happen with a more full-blooded commitment on the part of The Arch itself, beginning with a pretty straightforward yet quite crucial element, ensuring it is able to offer in full what is a rather reduced and unchallenging menu to begin with, especially early in the evening in a half full restaurant on the busiest night of the week.

The Verdict

• Food: 7.5
• Service: 9.5
• Value: 8
• Atmosphere: 8 (lovely venue must truly hum when full)